After nearly 14 years in prison and another three years of excruciating legal limbo, a Queens judge dismissed the case of a man wrongly convicted of murdering his childhood pal after prosecutors conceded they could not retry the case.
“You’re free to resume your life,” Supreme court Justice Joel Blumenfeld told a tearying Kareem Bellamy, 44, who had been locked up from 1994 to 2008 on a murder conviction. “Get on with our life. Don’t dwell in the past. Make the most of what you’ve got.”
Bellamy, who has also maintained he never knifed James Abbott Jr. to death in Rockaway in April 1994, said the first thing he would do was visit his family down south.
“Now I get to go to Virginia and try to reconnect with my 21-year-old daughter,” said a thankful Bellamy who was only 28-years-old when he was sent to prison, leaving his two young children without a father.
“I can’t say thank you enough to the judge and to the justice system,” said an overwhelmed Bellamy.
Bellamy had been sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for the murder.
“The truth was in the march and nothing could stop us,” said Thomas Hoffman who originally represented Bellamy and was always convinced of his client’s innocence.
In 2008, former FBI agent Joseph O’Brien and retired NYPD Detective Eddie Henson, took his case pro bono and thoroughly canvassed Far Rockaway for months.
They found a recording of another man confessing to the vicious stabbing in 2008 which prompted Judge Blumfeld to order a new trial and free Bellamy. O’Brien, convinced that Bellamy had been railroaded, even put his own upstate condo up for collateral to secure his bail. But, Bellamy’s travel was restricted and he was compelled to wear an ankle monitor.
As prosecutors prepared for the re-trial, they concluded the alleged stabber was a career criminal who was allegedly paid to make the phony confession, but thier attempts to have the tape tossed as evidence failed.
“Mr. Bellamy has now been freed from that conviction based on an outright fraud perpetrated against this court. He has not — I repeat — he has not been exonerated,” said prosecutor Brad Leventhal. “This is not a case of actual innocence. The sole basis for the vacatur of this defendant’s 15-year-old conviction by this court was the patently false testimony of Michael Green, a career criminal who received a substantial amount of money from the defense which induced his original hearing testimony and who admittedly told this court he had hoped to receive even more money in the future.”
The judge also ordered to have Bellamy’s tracking device removed and the $150,000 bail O’Brien posted to be returned. Bellamy, who is now studying to become a medical biller, said he doesn’t understand why prosecutors kept gunning for him.
“Do they want James to come out of the grave and say, ‘He didn’t kill me?'” he asked.