Wrongfully Convicted Man Sues NYC For $125M After Decades In Jail

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK — A man imprisoned for nearly three decades is suing the city for $125 million, arguing Brooklyn detectives framed him for a subway murder he didn't commit, court records show.

Emmanuel Cooper, 54, filed his malicious prosecution suit in Brooklyn’s federal court Monday after 27 years in prison for a crime that was vacated in 2020, court records show.

“This lawsuit seeks to hold those responsible for this catastrophic injustice accountable,” the complaint reads.

“[It] arises from the wrongful arrest, prosecution, and conviction of Emmanuel Cooper, an innocent man whose life was destroyed by police and prosecutors."

The New York City Law Department did not immediately respond to Patch’s request for comment.

Cooper’s decades-long battle against New York’s criminal justice system began the night of Nov. 25, 1992, in East New York's Euclid Avenue subway station, according to the complaint.

Two men burst into a token booth, fatally shot Metropolitan Transportation Authority clerk Andres Barretto, robbed the cash drawer and fled, court records show.

Two witnesses told police the gunman was a neighborhood local — not Cooper — whom one named as a drug dealer named Chris, the complaint states.

The witness noted he’d seen “Chris” carry a gun of the same caliber used in the shooting, according to the lawsuit.

Six witnesses described the shooter as about 5 feet 10 inches tall, weighing between 160 and 190 pounds and wearing a mark on his right cheek, according to the complaint.

Cooper stands 5 feet 7 inches, weighed 145 pounds at the time, and was not identified by any of the witnesses, the lawsuit notes.

As pressure mounted to solve the high-profile case, the complaint contends police forced Rico Sanchez, a local man they accused of a violent crime, to identify Cooper as the subway shooter.

Sanchez testified against Cooper — who had an alibi for the night of the murder — and did not face charges related to his alleged former crime, the complaint states.

Cooper was convicted and, in February 1994, entered the upstate New York correctional facility where he would remain until Jan. 9, 2020, state records show.

His case was vacated with help from attorney Thomas Hoffman, who filed Monday’s federal lawsuit as well as a $66 million state lawsuit in the New York Court of Claims, records show.

The Brooklyn District Attorney’s office said in March 2020 Cooper would be retried, but dropped the case last November, after an investigation that found they could no longer prove reasonable doubt, the complaint notes.

Upon release, Cooper moved to North Carolina to live with his wife Sandy and their 10-year-old daughter Layla, according to an interview with CNN.

CNN noted Cooper still suffers with claustrophobia, which developed during his stay on Rikers Island, so when faced with an elevator, he and his wife take the stairs together.

Hoffman, Cooper’s attorney whom did not immediately respond to Patch’s request for comment, compared his client’s imprisonment, and the decades Cooper spent separated from his wife, to a felony crime.

"These are not wrongful convictions. These are murders,” Hoffman told CNN. “Murders of not only the person, but the whole family."