A Brooklyn man wants a million dollars for every year the state wrongly locked him up in prison.
Derrick Deacon, who spent almost a quarter-century behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit, has hit the state with a $25 million lawsuit he hopes will teach authorities a lesson about bending the rules to gain a conviction.
“These people have to pay for every day they made me suffer behind the wall for no reason,” Deacon, 58, who was freed last year by new evidence, told The Post.
Deacon was convicted of murder on Dec. 21, 1989, in the fatal shooting that April of Anthony Wynn, 16. He was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
But Deacon was granted a new trial on June 20, 2012, after a Jamaican gangbanger said a fellow gang member killed Wynn.
Also, a woman who took the stand at Deacon’s trial recanted her testimony, saying police or district attorney investigators had coached and even threatened her.
Colleen Campbell had told investigators Deacon was not the man she saw fleeing in a stairwell after the shooting, but she was coached to give vague testimony at trial, with authorities threatening to take her children if she didn’t cooperate, the suit states.
“[Police] told Campbell that she was in trouble for leaving the children unattended and that the children would be taken away unless she accompanied them to the District Attorney’s Office,” says the suit, filed by Deacon’s defense attorney, Glenn Garber.
“Concerned about losing her children, and also afraid that the true killer would seek retribution against her, Campbell did what she was told and falsely testified at trial that she was unsure whether the person she saw was or was not Mr. Deacon.”
After Deacon was awarded a new trial, Campbell testified in 2013 that it wasn’t him she had seen fleeing.
A Brooklyn Supreme Court jury in November deliberated just nine minutes before acquitting Deacon.
Once he was released, Deacon celebrated with a feast of chicken wings and chili at Tribeca’s Mudville Saloon in a party featured on the front page of The Post.
Deacon said he’s now seeing a therapist to cope with being back in what he calls “the new world.”
He recalled the bittersweet moment he heard the not-guilty verdict in November.
“I was excited but sad at the same time. Sad, in a way, about the one person that I really care about, my mom, my baby’s mom and my aunts. They all died while I was in there. I missed seeing my kids grow up,” Deacon said, adding he would use any money he was awarded to help his family.
“I got kids, grandkids I want to send to college because I never had the opportunity to do that for my children. I have friends behind the wall still suffering, and I’d like to help them, too.”
A spokeswoman for the state attorney general declined to comment on the suit.