Photos: Man who was jailed for 14 years released after witness admits she lied

A federal judge has thrown out the
murder conviction of a Queens man
imprisoned since 2002 for killing a
tenant patrol leader in a fusillade of
gunfire at a Far Rockaway housing
project.

Tullie (Birdie) Hyman must be
released from state prison within 90
days. Hyman has maintained that he is innocent and that he was falsely
implicated in the shooting by witness Shaquana Ellis, who has since recanted her trial testimony.

“Until today, the criminal justice system has failed Tullie and his family,” said his appeals lawyer Mark DeMarco.

According to the NY Daily News,Brooklyn Federal Judge Raymond Dearie ruled Wednesday that it’s clear that Ellis did not witness
the shooting.

Hyman’s former lawyer had hired a private eye who determined it was
impossible for Ellis to have seen what she claimed from the vantage point of a third-floor window, but the investigator did not testify at
Hyman’s trial due to a fee dispute.
Hyman is serving 21 years to life for
the murder.

Ellis testified at a hearing in Brooklyn Federal Court last December that she was threatened at gunpoint to finger Hyman as the shooter, but she could not identify who made the threat because she claimed he was wearing a bandana across his face.


“That night, me walking home, my life and my family’s life was threatened. I had no choice,” she testified.

The gunman “said if I didn’t
point Tullie out (to the police) they were gonna come and kill me and my family."

She said she came forward because “I’ve been living with this lie for years, and I want the truth to be told.”