IT’S ABOUT TIME: Bible-clutching ex-inmate Cathy Watkins embraces loved ones yesterday outside Bronx court. (Tomas E. Gaston)
GOOD TO GO: Eric Glisson yesterday shows the ankle monitor he’ll wear for 90 days until his conviction is fully erased. (
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Two prisoners wrongly convicted of murdering a Bronx cabby tasted freedom yesterday for the first time in 17 years after their convictions were vacated and a judge released them from jail.
Eric Glisson and Cathy Watkins greeted their giddy friends and family with big smiles and long hugs outside a Bronx courthouse.
“I’m free, and I’m happy,” said Glisson, 37. “I want to make the best of this opportunity. This is a major pivotal point in my life. I never thought I’d see this day. It’s great and it’s scary at the same time. This has been a great injustice. All along I knew I was innocent.”
Watkins let her T-shirt do the talking.
Wearing a top that said, “I didn’t do it,” Watkins, 44, railed against the legal agreement that will keep them under court supervision for another 90 days.
“I feel like I have one foot still in the system and another one out,” Watkins said. “I spent almost 18 years in prison, and this is what I get.”
What she and Glisson got were ankle bracelets that limit their movements beyond the five boroughs and a few Westchester and New Jersey suburbs.
Under the agreement, the convictions are vacated for 90 days while prosecutors more closely investigate the evidence that clears them. After that, they get to start all over again.
Glisson said he will attend Mercy College, where he will take classes in behavioral science.
“This is a chance for me for a better life,” Glisson said. “I never thought I’d see this day because I had a life sentence. But I worked hard and persevered, and with effort and determination, I’m standing here before you.”
Watkins, who earned a sociology degree while in prison, looked forward to some comfort food.
“I’m going home to have dinner with my family,” Watkins said. “Nothing is as good as fried chicken from home.”
Glisson and Watkins were among five people convicted in the 1995 shooting death of livery-cab driver Baithe Diop, a Senegalese immigrant who was murdered in the Soundview section of The Bronx.
Authorities began to listen to their pleas of innocence when investigators linked the murder to two turncoat gangbangers who later confessed to the shooting.
Glisson and Watkins were convicted only of killing Diop while three others – Devon Ayers, Michael Cosme and Carlos Perez – were found guilty of murdering both the cabby and a woman named Denise Raymond.
Prosecutors had said the killings were linked.
Watkins daughter, Tyniqua , 27, who was 9 years old when her mother went to jail, said it was a happy reunion.
“It was a lot for a 9-yearold to take on losing my mother for 17 years, especially knowing she was innocent of the charges,” Tyniqua said. “It was painful to grow up without a mom. Now I’m happy because I’m going to get some me time with mom.”