Brooklyn Man Exonerated After 19 Years for 2005 Robbery
A New York judge on Monday vacated the 2007 robbery conviction of Kenneth Windley and dismissed the case, freeing the 61-year-old after nearly 20 years in prison for a roughly $550 robbery that Brooklyn prosecutors now say he did not commit. Windley was arrested in 2005 after buying a stove for his mother with a $542.77 money order that turned out to have been stolen from 70-year-old Gerald Ross, who later picked Windley out of a lineup, and prior felony convictions helped drive a 20‑years‑to‑life sentence. The Brooklyn District Attorney’s Conviction Review Unit found new evidence, including sworn confessions from two other men who admitted robbing Ross and are already serving time for similar robberies of older men followed home from banks and check‑cashing offices in 2005–06. DA Eric Gonzalez called the case a 'cautionary tale' about how evidence can be misread, apologized to Windley and said that had jurors known about the alternate suspects and their robbery patterns, it likely would have created reasonable doubt. No new charges will be filed in the Ross case because the statute of limitations has expired and Ross has died, leaving the two admitted robbers uncharged for this specific crime and adding fuel to ongoing debates over wrongful convictions, eyewitness reliability, and remedies for people who lose decades to errors in the justice system.
📌 Key Facts
- Kenneth Windley, 61, had his 2007 robbery conviction vacated and case dismissed in Brooklyn on March 16, 2026, after serving nearly 19 years in prison.
- Windley was linked to the crime after using a $542.77 stolen money order to buy a stove; the victim, 70-year-old Gerald Ross, identified him in a lineup.
- Two other men, already imprisoned for similar robberies of older male victims in Brooklyn, have now confessed in sworn statements to robbing Ross and say Windley was not involved.
- Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez’s Conviction Review Unit deemed the new evidence 'compelling,' and Gonzalez publicly apologized and called the case a 'cautionary tale.'
- Prosecutors cannot bring new charges in the Ross robbery because the statute of limitations has run and Ross is deceased.
📊 Relevant Data
Of the 151 known robbery exonerations in the United States from 1989 to 2022, 64% involved Black defendants, compared to Black people comprising 13.6% of the U.S. population.
Race and Wrongful Convictions in the United States, 2022 — National Registry of Exonerations
Eyewitness misidentification contributes to approximately 70% of known wrongful convictions overturned by DNA evidence in the United States.
Eyewitness misidentification is leading cause of wrongful convictions — Carleton University News
Cross-racial misidentifications account for 42% of wrongful convictions based on eyewitness misidentifications, due to the own-race bias where individuals are less accurate in identifying people of other races.
Eyewitness Misidentification — Montana Innocence Project
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