NYPD and Astoria, Queens.
Photo: Mariela Lombard / The NY Journal
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After spending almost eight years in prison and under house arrest while being innocent, Prakash Churaman has finally seen the light in a long and painful tunnel of injustice that began with the murder of his friend Taquane Clark in Queens (NYC).
He now intends to sue the city for $25 million, alleging that police officers forced him to make a false confession when he was a teenager, he said. New York Post.
“I have said that I was innocent from day one,” he told Pix11 Churaman, an immigrant from Guyana, after learning of his release. In 2014 his friend Clark was shot and killed during a home invasion by three intruders in Queens.
The suspects wore masks during the crimebut a 74-year-old woman present at the time said she had recognized Churaman’s voice and ended up being charged for it.
“I have said that I was innocent from day one”
Prakash Churaman Charged with Wrongful Murder in Queens, NYC
José Nieves, Churaman’s defense attorney, commented last year that “Earwitnesses are inherently unreliable.”
Churaman states that it was a confused fifteen-year-old teenager when he was taken to the police station and interrogated by detectives without his lawyer. At that time he confessed to having played a role in the crime, but later recanted and told Pix11 what was pressured. “These detectives questioned me for hours.”
At that time Churaman he was taking medication for depression and anxiety and has since been diagnosed with a learning disability. Although her mother was present, she did not understand the consequences of a confession and begged Churaman to cooperate with the police so that she would not be late for work, she explained. Daily News.
The 15-year-old eventually confessed to being present at the scene of a botched robbery. Unbeknownst to Churaman, his friend Clark had died during that incident. He later retracted, but it was too late. Churaman was charged with manslaughter.
In 2018 he was convicted of felony murder, but his sentence was overturned two years later. He ever since he has lived in a legal limbo on house arrest waiting for prosecutors to retry the case.
During a court hearing Monday, Churaman finally learned that the district attorney’s office is no longer pursuing the case. “I woke up every day telling myself that my time would come, my day would come,” he said relieved.
Unfortunately his case is not exceptional. According to data in 2021 from National Registry of Exemptions (NRE), 22% of people accused of homicide gave false confessions. That figure skyrockets when the defendant is a minor. In fact, minors are almost four times more likely than adults to admit crimes they did not commit.
In an even more serious case, it was announced last month that the city of New York will pay $10.5 million to a man who spent 24 years in jail by mistake, to settle a federal civil rights lawsuit against a former detective and two other officers.
Last July, in Staten Island (NYC) a murder conviction was overturned for the first time, after a man spent 23 years unjustly imprisoned.
In September, Keith Bush, a wrongfully convicted man who spent 33 years behind bars accused of stabbing and strangling a teenage girl, reached a $16 million settlement in Suffolk County. He was the longest murder case to be overturned in New York State history and one of the longest in the entire US.
In late 2021, Julio Negrón, a former school guard who spent 10 years in prison because prosecutors in Queens (NYC) allegedly withheld key evidence and tampered with witnesses, settled his lawsuit against the city for $6.25 million dollars.
Also in 2018 there were reports several cases of men in New York who spent years in prison for crimes they did not commit. Since then, other injustices have been recognized.
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