Jon-Adrian “JJ” Velazquez, an actor who spent more than 23 years in prison for murder, was formally exonerated by a New York judge Monday more than a decade after a “Dateline” special launched a crusade to have his conviction overturned.
Jon-Adrian Velazquez attends the "Sing Sing" premiere during the 2023 Toronto International Film ... [+]
A Manhattan judge on Monday morning overturned Velazquez's second-degree murder conviction, multiple outlets reported, after he spent decades arguing his innocence, fighting for his freedom and advocating for criminal legal reform.
Velazquez was convicted in the murder of retired police officer Albert Ward in 1998 despite not matching the description of the suspect and providing an alibi.
The first real breakthrough in Velazquez's push for freedom came in 2002 when he contacted "Dateline NBC" producer Dan Slepian, who launched a 10-year investigation into the case that culminated in an Emmy-nominated broadcast and sparked a review of the case by the Manhattan District Attorney's Conviction Integrity Unit.
The district attorney ultimately decided to let the conviction stand, and Velazquez filed several unsuccessful motions to vacate before he was granted clemency by then-New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Velazquez was released from prison after serving 23 years—nearly all of his original 25-year sentence—and has since participated in dozens of criminal reform forums, including a 2022 event at which President Joe Biden apologized on “behalf of all society” for the conviction.
In 2023, Velazquez starred as himself in the drama "Sing Sing" about an arts rehabilitation program at New York's Sing Sing Correctional Facility, where he served his sentence, and a podcast about his push for freedom called "Letters from Sing Sing" released by NBC the same year.
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"I’m getting a part of my dignity back,” Velazquez told Variety ahead of his expected exoneration. “There’s nothing that they can do to give me back the 24 years I lost, and all of the tribulations to incur as a result. There’s a spirit of vindication, but there’s still a lot of trauma that’s unaddressed — that the system refuses to address.”
Ward was murdered in January of 1998 during an attempted robbery at an illegal gambling establishment he owned and ran in Harlem. Two men entered the building, the New York Times reported at the time, when Ward drew a gun and fired at the intruders. One man fired back and killed Ward, who was pronounced dead at the scene. A witness reported the intruders being two Black males, and the shooter was described by police as a Black man with a light complexion and dreadlocks between 5 feet 7 inches and 5 feet 9 inches tall. Velazquez is Latino. Days after the murder Jon-Adrian Velazquez voluntarily reported to a police station for questioning and was identified positively by three of six witnesses in a lineup. He was then charged with the murder of Albert Ward. He was sent to Sing Sing later that year, where he was appointed to several committees, earned a Bachelor's degree in behavioral science and lived in the "honor block," a portion of the prison housing those who have never received a disciplinary citation.
22,000. That's a conservative estimate of how many people are thought to be behind bars for crimes they didn't commit, according to Harvard Public Health Magazine.
Groups like the Innocence Project and Equal Justice Initiative have dedicated countless hours of legal services to those who may have been wrongfully convicted, and the emergence of new inventions like DNA testing and conviction review units are continuing to uncover flawed cases that ended in jail time and, in some cases, death. The issue has been further highlighted through popular podcasts and television shows including "Wrongful Conviction," "For the Innocent” and “Truth and Justice.”