A “Sing Sing” actor marked the beginning of the “end of a mistake” after New York prosecutors decided he was wrongfully convicted of murdering a retired police officer in the 1990s.
Manhattan district. Lawyer. Alvin Bragg announced Monday that his office would overturn the murder conviction of actor Jon-Adrian “JJ” Velázquez, citing “newly discovered DNA evidence” that prosecutors said proved his innocence. “JJ Velazquez has lived in the shadow of his conviction for more than 25 years, and I hope today brings a new chapter for him,” Bragg said.
Velazquez, 48, was convicted in 1999 of shooting retired police officer Albert Ward. Ward was shot to death in 1998 when he attempted to thwart an armed robbery and shot two suspects, including the shooter, at an underground gambling parlor in Harlem. Velazquez, who said he was in the Bronx talking on the phone with his mother at the time of the shooting, was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison at Sing Sing Correctional Facility. The then governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, granted him early release and pardon in 2021.
The district attorney's office, which said it had rejected motions to overturn Velazquez's conviction in 2014 and 2018, said Monday that it had finally reviewed the actor's case, prompting the chief medical examiner to compare the actor's DNA with DNA from a betting slip that belonged to the shooter.
“The tests found that Velázquez's DNA was excluded – or not found – from a mixture of the DNA on the betting slip handled by the shooter,” Monday's statement said, adding that “this type of DNA comparison was not available” at the time of the actor's trial in the 90s.
The district attorney's decision to clear his name this week “is not a celebration,” Veláquez told members of the media outside a courthouse. Surrounded by his loved ones and wearing a black cap that said “End of an error,” Velázquez told reporters that this moment was “an indictment of the system.”
Velázquez shares the screen with Colman Domingo and Paul Raci in Greg Kwedar's drama “Sing Sing.” The film highlights the Rehabilitation through the Arts theater program for incarcerated men in New York City Prison. “Sing Sing” also stars former incarcerated actors Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin, Sean “Dino” Johnson, David “Dap” Giraudy and Patrick “Preme” Griffin as themselves. In her review for the LA Times, critic Katie Walsh praised its “very good performances.”
“'Sing Sing' is a powerful argument for humanity's existence within a space designed to dehumanize,” Walsh wrote.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
