DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN — THE CONVICTION OF A MAN WHO SPENT 16 YEARS IN PRISON for a 1988 killing that someone else committed should be overturned, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez declared on Tuesday, July 1.
The District Attorney’s Conviction Review Unit conducted a thorough re-investigation of the case of Brian Kendall, now 55, who served nearly 16 years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter. He was paroled in 2004.
The reinvestigation found that what Kendall has claimed — that he and a group of friends chased down the actual killer of Flatbush game hall employee Raphael Reyes — was likely true, and revealed that police reports and audio recordings supported the defendant’s claim that another man was the shooter, a point that friends, the brother of the deceased and contemporaneous police dispatches all corroborated shortly after the incident.
Kendall, who was 17 at the time, pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter (instead of the more serious second-degree murder charge) in exchange for a sentence of 8 1/3 to 25 years in prison. After admitting to the crime in parole hearings, he was released in 2004.
The fact that Kendall pleaded guilty and took responsibility during parole hearings is understandable under the circumstances and does not contravene the conclusion that he is likely innocent, said Gonzalez.
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