Brooklyn man awarded $6M after spending 24 years in prison for wrongful conviction

Luther Vandross was outed as gay after his death.

Derrick Deacon spent 24 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit, and now, he has settled a lawsuit against New York City for $6 million.

Deacon’s case was re-tried in 2013, and a jury deliberated for only nine minutes before they agreed to overturn his conviction, as another man was implicated by evidence as the actual murderer.

“Based upon newly discovered evidence which implicated another man as the actual killer, the court vacated Mr. Deacon’s conviction and granted him a new trial,” Nicholas Paolucci, a spokesman for the city Law Department said in a statement. “We have determined that a settlement of this civil suit is fair and in the best interests of the City.”

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The case against Deacon took a body blow in 2001 when an informant gave the name of the real killer, but even when Deacon’s conviction was reversed by the Appellate Division for the Second Department in 2013, the DA’s office refused to drop the charges against Deacon, and so he sued the city for malicious prosecution.

“The case should have never been retried and the acquittal after nine minutes was a slap in the face of the D.A.’s office,” his lawyer Glenn Garber said Monday. “This settlement is some level of redemption and compensation for Derrick’s suffering.”

The $6 million settlement is in addition to a $3.9 million settlement for wrongful incarceration.

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