Man Walks Free 26 Years After Bed-Stuy Murder Conviction Vacated

BEDFORD-STUYVESANT, BROOKLYN — A man who spent more than a quarter of a century in prison walked free Thursday after a Bed-Stuy woman admitted she'd been pressured into testifying he'd shot a 10-year-old girl and killed another man, attorneys said.

Carlos Weeks, 46, spent 26 years in prison for a shooting in Bed-Stuy's Tompkins Houses in July 1993 based only on two sisters' testimony that prosecutors and his attorneys said later turned out to be false.

“Carlos’ case underscores the need for district attorneys’ offices to have robust wrongful conviction review units that can review cases expeditiously to correct injustices," said Elizabeth Felber of Legal Aid's Wrongful Conviction Unit.

"We urge that office to investigate those matters promptly so that other wrongfully convicted individuals can experience the vindication that Carlos has experienced today.”

Weeks' decades-long battle with the criminal justice system began on July 6, 1993, when a shootout erupted outside the Tompkins Houses on Park Avenue, according to the Brooklyn District Attorney's office.

Frank Davis, 21, was killed and a 10-year-old girl who was caught in the crossfire and seriously wounded, prosecutors said.

Ten days later, a man named Marshall Taylor told police Weeks had confessed to the shooting at with two accomplices in retaliation for a recent robbery, said prosecutors.

Taylor's story was backed up by his mother and aunt, Carmella and Lorraine Taylor, who said they saw Weeks firing a gun from their 12th story window across the street from the Tompkins Houses, prosecutors said.

Lorraine Taylor also said she ran downstairs when the shooting broke out to find her kids in a nearby playground and saw Weeks throw a gun in a car and drive off, said prosecutors.

But Marshall Taylor committed suicide in prison about a year after Weeks was indicted, and his mother and aunt both tried to duck out of testifying in Weeks' trial, said prosecutors.

In 1995, Weeks was found guilty of murder and sentenced to 27 1/2 years to life in the Eastern Correctional Facility in upstate New York, according to prosecutors and state records.

Twenty years later, attorneys Davis Polk and from Legal Aid began investigating the two women's claims.

Lorraine Taylor finally admitted she never saw the shooters' faces and explained, "there was so much pressure" to testify and help her nephew, who had been recently arrested, the attorneys said.

Carmella Taylor said she remembered nothing of the shooting or her testimony.

"The two witnesses who identified Mr. Weeks as the shooter were not credible," said Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez. "Accordingly, we cannot stand by this conviction and will release the defendant."

Polk and Legal Aid also found evidence that Weeks had an alibi and that prosecutors had not called a witness who would have testified Weeks had not been at the shooting, according to a press release.

They presented this evidence to CRU in October, 2017, and the Brooklyn District Attorney's office eventually agreed to vacate Weeks’s conviction.