{"id":182928,"date":"2026-04-02T00:28:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T00:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/182928\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T00:28:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T00:28:09","slug":"conviction-for-1979-brooklyn-rabbi-murder-vacated-wrongly-accused-judge-says-is-actually-innocent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/182928\/","title":{"rendered":"Conviction for 1979 Brooklyn rabbi murder vacated — wrongly accused, judge says, “is actually innocent”"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Brooklyn judge Wednesday said a man who served 30 years behind bars for killing a prominent Crown Heights rabbi<\/a> \u201cis actually innocent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judge Guy Mangano, in a 49-page decision, cleared Carl Miller, <\/a>now 65, of any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

The court, Mangano<\/a> said in the decision, \u201cfinds that there is clear and convincing evidence that defendant is actually innocent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDefendant\u2019s motion to vacate his judgment of conviction is thereby granted,\u201d the judge said, \u201cand the indictment is dismissed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miller told the Daily News that when his lead lawyer, James Henning<\/a>, called him at home with the news, he felt relief.<\/p>\n

\"CarlCarl Miller, left, and his attorney James Henning at Columbus Park in Brooklyn, Feb. 12, 2025. (Shawn Inglima\/New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

\u201cNow I don\u2019t have to fight any more,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t have that stigma any more. I never wavered. I didn\u2019t commit this crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

Henning called the ruling \u201chistorically significant,\u201d adding he could recall only two other cases in the state in which a judge ruled someone innocent \u2014 as opposed to ordering a new trial.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just a very high bar to hit,\u201d Henning added. \u201cA finding like this indicates a judge\u2019s extreme confidence in actual innocence. No reasonable juror would convict at a retrial.\u201d<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t clear if prosecutors would appeal. A spokesman for Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez<\/a> said the DA\u2019s office is \u201creviewing the decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Oct. 25, 1979, Miller celebrated his 19th birthday \u2014 only to find soon after that he was being eyed in the sensational slaying of Rabbi David Okunov, who was shot, point blank, on his way to morning prayers.<\/p>\n

\"RabbiRabbi David Okunov. (New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

The killer fired once, striking Okunov, 68, above the right eye, then fled the scene at Montgomery St. near Troy Ave. with the victim\u2019s prayer shawl.<\/p>\n

From the start, Miller said he was at his girlfriend\u2019s home in South Ozone Park, 9 miles away.<\/p>\n

But he was charged with murder \u2014 largely on the word of a friend of Miller\u2019s. Darryl Brown, who was 16 at the time, was initially a suspect and provided differing accounts of what he saw, according to court documents.<\/p>\n

Two other witnesses did not pick Miller out of a lineup, both describing the man they saw at the murder scene as roughly 5 feet, 9 inches tall and about 150 pounds. Miller at the time was recorded as 6 feet, 1 inch tall and 174 pounds.<\/p>\n

\"CarlCarl Miller’s mugshot from 1979.<\/p>\n

Miller was nonetheless convicted of murder in 1980.<\/p>\n

He was released from prison in 2019 and set about trying to clear his name so his family, including two grandchildren, could live without the stain of being related to a convicted killer.<\/p>\n

Henning filed a motion to vacate in May 2024 on numerous grounds, including insufficient evidence and police and prosecutorial misconduct.<\/p>\n

Mangano said none of that was proven, but he found it \u201cparticularly compelling\u201d that Miller at each parole hearing maintained his innocence even though admitting guilt might have lead to an earlier release from prison.<\/p>\n

And he said that while Brown\u2019s testimony convinced the jury Miller did it, Brown \u201cmay have been mistaken.\u201d<\/p>\n

On that, Miller disagreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cGod knows I didn\u2019t kill [the rabbi],\u201d Miller said. \u201cThat man who lied, Darryl Brown, knows I didn\u2019t kill him.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I know I didn\u2019t kill him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Brooklyn judge Wednesday said a man who served 30 years behind bars for killing a prominent Crown…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,262,263,266,85,267,9,24,264,12,63,261,265],"class_list":{"0":"post-182928","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn","8":"tag-brooklyn","9":"tag-brooklyn-headlines","10":"tag-brooklyn-news","11":"tag-city","12":"tag-county","13":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","14":"tag-latest-headlines","15":"tag-local-news","16":"tag-new-york","17":"tag-new-york-city","18":"tag-new-york-county","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-nyc","21":"tag-nyc-crime","22":"tag-sub-county-region"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}