A Brooklyn man, who served over 30 years in prison for the 1990 murder of a Hofstra University football coach and was acquitted in 2025 at a retrial, has filed a federal lawsuit against Nassau County and the detectives with the Nassau County Police Department involved in the case, claiming that authorities deliberately withheld evidence.  

The complaint filed in the Eastern District of New York alleges that 55-year-old Christopher Ellis’s conviction resulted from unconstitutional investigative practices, including a coerced confession, a tainted eyewitness identification and the failure to disclose exculpatory evidence.

Ellis said that he filed the suit because of the toll the prison time and criminal trials took on his life.

“I lost more than 30 years of my life for something I did not do,” he said in a statement about the suit. “You can’t give that time back. I missed decades with my family, milestones, and opportunities I will never get again. I’m bringing this case to seek accountability and to help ensure this does not happen to anyone else.”

Ellis was arrested in 1991 at the age of 20 in connection with an attempted robbery, to which he confessed shortly after his arrest, according to the complaint. 

Law enforcement officers continued to detain and question him for roughly 14 hours while being deprived of food, sleep, and access to counsel, regarding the unsolved Sept. 29, 1990, murder of Joseph Healy outside an Arby’s in Hempstead. Ellis initially denied involvement in the murder but ultimately signed a statement admitting to participation in Healy’s murder after prolonged pressure, according to the complaint. 

Ellis later recanted the statement, saying that it was false and the product of coercion, according to the complaint.

Ellis was convicted of second-degree murder and other charges in 1992 and was sentenced to over 31 years in prison. He appealed the conviction, but a court confirmed it in 1995.

In 2019, Ellis filed a motion to vacate his conviction, challenging it on the grounds of newly discovered evidence and allegations that prosecutors failed to disclose material exculpatory evidence.

Ellis’s legal team collaborated with the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office Conviction Integrity Bureau, which led to the discovery of more than 100 pages of police files described as exculpatory, including materials referencing additional leads, confessions, sworn statements, and police notes that had not previously been disclosed to the defense, according to the complaint.

He was released from prison in 2021.

But months later, the district attorney’s office said it would retry Ellis on the vacated counts and provided his counsel with more previously undisclosed, exculpatory evidence, according to the complaint.

After a two-week trial in January 2025, a jury acquitted Ellis of murder.

“This case represents a complete breakdown of the criminal justice system in Nassau County,” Ilann Maazel, a partner at Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP and Ellis’ counsel, said. “It’s scary how police can concoct a murder charge against an innocent man. We look forward to holding all of these defendants responsible for their role in this appalling case.”