{"id":76083,"date":"2025-12-19T23:12:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T23:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/76083\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T23:12:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T23:12:09","slug":"brooklyn-mans-retrial-for-murder-dismissed-after-he-spent-11-years-in-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/76083\/","title":{"rendered":"Brooklyn man\u2019s retrial for murder dismissed after he spent 11 years in prison"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Brooklyn man who served 11 years in jail for a murder he did not commit <\/a>received an early Christmas gift on Friday \u2014 his freedom.<\/p>\n

Derrick Ulett, 38, was already out on bail awaiting a second trial on charges that he shot a man to death outside a Brooklyn apartment building in 2008.<\/p>\n

But Ulett, a husband, father and son, was not truly free until a Brooklyn judge dismissed the murder charges against him, siding with defense attorneys who have said for years that the case against Ulett was built on lies.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a blessing, man,\u201d an emotional Ulett said outside Brooklyn Criminal Court. \u201cIt took 17 years to get us here. I\u2019m just ready to just be a free man fully now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The once-solid case against Ulett fell apart six years ago when his defense team discovered prosecutors withheld critical surveillance footage and relied on deeply flawed evidence, according to the Legal Aid Society.<\/a><\/p>\n

By that time, Ulett had already served 11 years of his life-in-prison sentence, after he was convicted of fatally shooting Ruben Alexandre outside an apartment building in Flatbush.<\/p>\n

A Freedom of Information Act request led to the discovery of crucial surveillance video of the shooting that was never introduced during the trial, footage that contradicted the testimony of a key witness, Ulett\u2019s lawyers said.<\/p>\n

Not only did prosecutors at the time fail to disclose the evidence, they told the jury that no such video even existed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere is that video surveillance?\u201d a prosecutor told jurors during the trial\u2019s summation. \u201cWouldn\u2019t you think, ladies and gentlemen, that if there was video camera surveillance at 48 St. Paul\u2019s Place,<\/a> that would be very important, that possibly could show what it was that took place. Don\u2019t you think it would have shown who actually shot [the victim]? We don\u2019t have that video!\u201d<\/p>\n

But they did have the video, and, after an exhaustive round of motions, the New York Court of Appeals in 2019 reversed Ulett\u2019s conviction and ordered a new trial.<\/p>\n

Further investigation revealed other flaws, including autopsy photographs from an entirely different dead person. Recordings of 911 calls described a shooter whose description did not match Ulett.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is one of these cases where it\u2019s not a dismissal because a retrial wasn\u2019t viable after 17 years,\u201d said Erin Darcy, the Legal Aid Society\u2019s homicide defense task force supervisor. \u201cThis case was dismissed because it was built on lies. The foundation of this prosecution was untruthful witnesses, misconduct by law enforcement and, most importantly, burying critical evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ulett said he is ready to move on with his life, which was difficult to do before the charges were dismissed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll definitely be able to pursue a lot of jobs that I wasn\u2019t able to pursue before,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I\u2019m going to be able to just, you know, go forward with my life and not have to have that black cloud over me or my son. My son is doing very well in college right now. And it\u2019s just a lot right now, man, it\u2019s a great, great burden that is off of me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ulett, who cleans rooms at New York-Presbyterian Hospital,<\/a> said he wants to go back to school and get credits to be an X-ray technician. In the meantime, he said he wants to continue building his relationship with his 20-year-old son.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just so glad that I was able to make it back in time to be here,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen I left, he was only 3 years old. I came back and he was 16, you know. So it was just a process.\u201d<\/p>\n

So is life.<\/p>\n

\u201cChristmas came early, so we\u2019re gonna start celebrating now,\u201d Ulett said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Brooklyn man who served 11 years in jail for a murder he did not commit received an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76084,"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":["post-76083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-city","tag-county","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-county","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-crime","tag-sub-county-region"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76083","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=76083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}