CNN news 2013-03-25 加文本

cnn news 2013-03-25

I'm Anderson Cooper, welcome to podcast, my exclusive interview with a man whose word helped send an innocent man to prison for murder and his word decades later helped free him. Also the"RidicuList." Let's get started.

Now the remarkable story of a man named David Ranta who went free this afternoon in New York after serving 23 years in prison for a murder he did not commit. Convicted despite passing a polygraph, convicted despite alleged abuses by the investigating officers and serious doubt from the trial judge himself.

Convicted even though several witnesses now say they lied and one who you're going to meet in a moment says he was actually coached in the lineup who to pick.

First, Mary Snow on how David Ranta got his freedom back.

The defendant's motion to vacate the judgment of conviction is granted.

This is 58-year-old David Ranta today.

Thank you. Your Honor.

This was David Ranta in 1990 when he was arrested for a murder he didn't commit and sentenced to 37 and a half years behind bars.

It all happened in front of this building in a Hasidic neighborhood of Brooklyn, after a thief tried and failed to rob a diamond courier who sped away. The robber then turned his gun on a beloved rabbi named Chaskel Werzberger. He was shot through his car window and died four days later.

The community was in anguish. And the NYPD was under pressure. A massive effort followed to find the rabbi's killer. The investigation dragged on for six months. The lead detective at the time was Louis Scarcella, a man known within the NYPD to use unorthodox tactics to get his man.

Then a major break in the case. A key witness came forward, a 13-year-old neighbor of the rabbi. On his way to school that morning, a teen named Menachem Lieberman said he saw a suspicious looking man in a car around the time of the shooting. Eventually, police homed in on David Ranta and he was brought in for a lineup.

The 13-year-old Lieberman identified Ranta as the man in the car. At trial, alleged accomplices of Ranta's testified that he had killed the rabbi. He was found guilty of second-degree murder and has been in prison ever since with all hopes of appeal failed.

That is until two years ago, when Menachem Lieberman revealed a secret, something that only he knew and that had been weighing on him for over 20 years. He admitted in an affidavit( that he was coached, told by an NYPD detective to "pick the guy with the big nose."

More troubling allegations emerged. Michael Baum was David Ranta's original lawyer.

Do you believe he was framed?

Without a doubt. Without a doubt. I believed he was framed then. My concerns about that have never wavered. Yes, he was framed.

There's always been the question of Ranta's supposed confession after the crime. When he was arrested, detectives said he admitted to being at the scene of the crime, but not the shooter, only that wasn't recorded. But written down on paper by Detective Louis Scarcella. Ranta says that's wrong that he didn't admit to anything.

He said he never confessed.

Ma'am, I really, all I have to say is I stand by my confession, by the confession that I took.

There are investigators who are saying that rules were broken.

Yeah. I, ma'am, I didn't do anything wrong. I stand by my investigation.

The Brooklyn district attorney did not stand by the investigation and today a judge agreed.

Sir, you are free to go.

In an interview Ranta gave the "New York Times" this week as his release was pending, he said, quote, "I've lived for years in a cage, stripped down, humiliated. I'll be able to touch people again, to make decisions. To be honest, what's ahead scares me."