A Brooklyn man who was locked away 17 years for a crime he didn’t commit got his first taste of freedom Tuesday and said he was “framed” by a former NYPD detective whose investigative tactics have been called under review.
“I contacted the [DA’s] office and told them I was innocent and that Detective [Louis] Scarcella had framed me and I needed help,” Roger Logan, 53, said outside a Brooklyn courtroom Tuesday.
Logan was serving a 25 years-to-life sentence for the 1997 murder of Sherwin Gibbons in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
But an investigation by the Brooklyn DA’s Conviction Review Unit found that the witness who testified against Logan was actually in police custody the day she claimed to have seen Logan kill Gibbons.
“The witness could not have made those observations because she was incarcerated,” Brooklyn prosecutor Mark Hale said in court. “Mr. Logan’s lawyer did not and could not have known this.”
“OK sir, you’re free to go,” a court officer told Logan.
He and his family celebrated outside court on the sunny spring day.
“I believed my brother was innocent all this time,” said sister Connie Logan, 56.
“I want to get out of these clothes,” said Logan, gesturing down at his khakis and white button-down shirt. “This is not my style at all.”
The Conviction Review Unit began an investigation into some 50 Scarcella-involved cases after David Ranta, who spent 23 years behind bars in the killing a rabbi, had his conviction tossed in March 2013 amid allegations of misconduct by the since retired detective.
The DA’s office stands by 11 of the Scarcella cases it has reviewed, Thompson said Tuesday. Logan was the seventh wrongful conviction Thompson has vacated since he took office in January.
Three half-brothers were cleared for a 1985 murder after prosecutors said a crack-addicted witness Scarcella often used was unreliable. The other three were unrelated to the detective.
Scarcella did not immediately return a call for comment. He has previously told The Post he never did anything wrong in his murder investigations.
“I never framed anyone in my life. You have to be a low devil to frame someone. I sleep well at night,” Scarcella has said.