Man’s stern words as he is exonerated 28 years after ‘one of the worst’ wrongful convictions in history

A man had strong words outside the Bronx Hall of Justice as he was acquitted 28 years after “one of the worst” wrongful convictions in history.

Antonio Mallet, 54, spent 28 years behind bars after New York City police officers arrested him in connection with a 1996 murder robbery.

Mallet maintained his innocence and was ultimately acquitted by Judge Alvin Yearwood on Thursday.

He told it lohud.com outside the courtroom: ‘I will certainly be held accountable. I’m not stopping here, you understand?’

Mallet was joined by his lawyers, including David Shanies, who vowed that the fight was not over and that they would continue to search for answers as to how such a tragic failure of justice could have occurred.

Mallet maintained his innocence and was ultimately acquitted by Judge Alvin Yearwood on Thursday

Mallet was joined by his lawyers, including David Shanies (left), who promised that the fight was not over and that they would continue to get answers, including how this happened.

The story began in 1996, when Michael Ledeatte was shot dead in the Bronx after a stolen car sale went wrong.

His acquaintance Gregory Walker was about 40 meters away from the Lex GS 300 Ledeatte when he saw two people approach the car and shoot Ledeatte.

After police arrived on the scene, they interrogated Walker for more than 19 hours, leading to Mallet’s identification as the shooter, according to legal documents recently prepared by the team of attorneys handling Mallet’s wrongful conviction case.

This identification was the key piece of evidence that led to Mallet’s guilty conviction in 1999 – with even the original judge questioning its credibility, even as he refused to overturn the verdict.

Other questionable examples in this case were found in Walker’s written statement during his interrogation.

Walker wrote that Mallet shot Ledeatte twice in the head, but the man was shot only once — which stemmed from police allegedly receiving incorrect information from an emergency room doctor after he suffered an entry and exit wound had mistaken for two separate bullet holes.

Although Walker was present at the crime, this misremembering of details indicates Walker may have been coached by police to accept this as fact, Mallet’s attorneys said.

This started in 1996, when Michael Ledeate was shot dead in the Bronx after a stolen car sale went wrong. His acquaintance Gregory Walker was about 40 meters away from the Lex GS 300 Ledeatte was driving when he saw two people approach the car and shoot Ledeatte.

After police arrived on the scene, they interrogated Walker for more than 19 hours, leading to Mallet’s identification as the shooter, legal documents recently prepared by the team of attorneys handling Mallet’s wrongful conviction case.

Mallet was sentenced to 20 years to life, but continued to seek justice.

Until Mallet was released on parole in 2019, his team filed a dozen separate lawsuits, but all were dismissed.

Now Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark was among the judges who threw out his petition.

Her spokeswoman Patrice O’Shaughnessy told lohud.com that the evidence presented to Westchester County was never brought to Clark’s office when she oversaw his case.

Yearwood was the catalyst for overturning Mallet’s conviction after the judge heard his most recent petition and assigned the case to the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office.

A legal brief from Westchester’s Conviction Review Unit noted that after Walker gave five statements and endured hours of interrogations in which police threatened that the lack of an identifiable suspect could lead “police to conclude that he the murderer was’, he identified Mallet.

Until Mallet was released on parole in 2019, his team filed a dozen separate legal challenges, but all were dismissed. Now Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark (center) was among the judges who threw out his petition

Yearwood (center) was the catalyst for overturning Mallet’s conviction after the judge heard his most recent petition and transferred it to the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office.

Mallet said, “TWe need to be held accountable and I’m sure other people will come forward and say they did this to them too.”

Joseph Nieves was the lead detective on the case. He acknowledges that the pressure on Walker during interrogation “with the threat of becoming a suspect” prompted the man to implicate Mallet.

There have been other instances of misconduct on Nieve’s side.

The Conviction Review Unit has obtained Nieve’s disciplinary file. In one incident, the detective was described as hijacking a business owner’s video store to sell counterfeit videos.

He was arrested after the NYPD investigated and deemed the allegation “partially substantiated,” according to Mallet’s attorneys.

These misconduct incidents were not turned over to Mallet’s attorneys during the 1999 trial.

Noted civil rights attorney Ron Kuby called this conviction one of the worst he had ever seen and described the detectives as “dirty cops” at the time of Mallet’s arrest.