An 81-year-old Brooklyn man who served nine years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit was exonerated Monday — 52 years after pleading guilty to the crime in order to escape a possible death penalty.
Elderly Paul Gatling had his record cleared of the 1964 murder of sculptor Lawrence Rothbort, who was fatally shot in the chest in his Crown Heights home.
“There’s a lot of water going under the bridge,” Gatling said softly after a Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice vacated and sealed his conviction. “But the bridge is still standing. That bridge is the bridge to life for me. I was living a life that wasn’t a life.”
His wife, Florina, sat in the front row and cried tears of joy throughout the proceeding.
“I am so full of gratitude,” Gatling said as he sat flanked by Brooklyn DA Ken Thompson and Legal Aid lawyer Malvina Nathanson, who took up his case more than 50 years ago. “I’m filled up, but it’s a good feeling.”
Gatling, who now lives in Virginia, was put away largely on the eyewitness testimony of Rothbort’s pregnant wife, Marlene, and a man named Grady Reaves who told cops he saw Gatling on the block after the shooting.
But Reaves was a cooperating witness in multiple cases and is known to have committed perjury at least once, authorities said.
The Rothborts’ marriage was also marred by violence and adultery, Assistant District Attorney Mark Hale told the court as he asked Judge Dineen Riviezzo to pardon Gatling.
Marlene — who was nine months pregnant when Gatling went to trial –was having an affair with a tenant who once overheard her telling her husband that if he hit her again, she’d kill him.
No physical evidence connected Gatling to the crime, and the evidence of the wife’s infidelity was never turned over to the defense, Hale said.
“The testimony Mrs. Rothbort gave about the incident itself, in substance, reads more like the dialogue of a very bad ‘B movie’ than anything that would happen in reality,” Hale added.
Yet Gatling’s defense lawyer and family urged him to plead guilty to second-degree murder toward the end of his trial in order to avoid the death penalty.
The Korean War veteran’s sentence was commuted in December 1973 by New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller on his last day in office. He was released from prison in January 1974 but officially remained a convicted murderer.
“I am so sorry for what has happened to you, and I do hope that these proceedings have brought you some peace,” said Judge Riviezzo as she dismissed and sealed his case. “Best of luck to you, sir.”
Gatling’s exoneration by Thompson’s Conviction Review Unit marks the 20th time in the past two years that the panel has cleared a defendant.
“For over 50 years, Mr. gatling had had a wrongful conviction on his record, he has had to live as a wrongful murderer,” Thompson said. “But he fought to prove his innocence, even as he was facing the death penalty.
“This is our 20th exoneration of a wrongful conviction,” Thompson continued, “but we’re here because Mr. Gatling would not let go of his demand to be deemed innocent.”
The exoneree told reporters he left New York because he felt like he was living “under a cloud.”
“Now that’s over,” he said beaming. “I’m gonna spend some time with my wife, and play with my children and great grandchildren.”