Man who spent 14 years in prison in 1996 Brooklyn killing exonerated

BROOKLYN, N.Y. (PIX11) --- A man who spent more than a decade in prison after he was convicted in a 1996 killing in Brooklyn will be exonerated on Thursday, lawyers said.

Steven Ruffin, who spent almost 14 years locked up, will have his name cleared at an exoneration hearing in a Brooklyn court Thursday afternoon, according to The Legal Aid Society.

“I lost 14 years of my life for a crime I didn’t commit, and today will help me to move on from that chapter of my life, cleared of any wrongdoing,”  Ruffin said in a statement. “I want to thank my family for their unwavering support and for helping me to build back my life after prison. I also want to thank my legal team - Garrett Ordower and The Legal Aid Society’s Ted Hausman - for believing in my innocence and for never giving up, and District Attorney Gonzalez for helping to exonerate me.”

Ruffn was convicted of manslaughter in the shooting death of James Deligney on Feb. 6, 1996. Deligney was killed during a confrontation with a group a few blocks from Ruffin's family home in Crown Heights. Ruffin's sister was mugged that night when Ruffin and several other people canvassed the neighborhood looking for the perpetrator, lawyers said. Ruffin said he was with his sister when the incident happened.

Ruffin, then 17, was interrogated by the disgraced former NYPD Detective Luis Scarcella, who had been involved in 17 previous cases that have resulted in exonerations., according to The Legal Aid Society. Scarcella's questionable tactics led to Ruffin's confession, which he recanted, his lawyers said.

There was no physical evidence tying Ruffin to the case but the tainted testimony of an eyewitness led to his conviction. The witness' identification that Ruffin was the shooter was obtained by Scarcella, lawyers said.

Ruffin's defense team was able to get evidence pointing to the killer and the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office was able to corroborate that evidence and found more information implicating the shooter, lawyers said.

Ruffin was paroled in 2010 and moved to Atlanta to rebuild his life.

“While today will never fully compensate Mr. Ruffin for the years he spent confined to a prison cell for a crime he never committed, we hope that it brings him some solace and much-needed closure,” Lawrence T. Hausman of The Legal Aid Society said. “We thank Kings County District Attorney Eric Gonzalez for reviewing Mr. Ruffin’s application and consenting to this deserved vacatur.”