NEW YORK — Three defendants jailed as teens for setting a fatal 1995 token booth fire that killed an innocent clerk were exonerated Friday, with authorities again linking two notorious Brooklyn detectives to the wrongful convictions.
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez announced he will move to vacate the guilty verdicts against defendants Thomas Malik, James Irons and Vincent Ellerbe in the headline-grabbing case where MTA worker Harry Kaufman was mortally injured when his assailants squirted a flammable liquid through the change tray and set the booth afire.
Malik and Irons remain behind bars for what authorities had described as a robbery gone bad, while Ellerbe was paroled in 2020. The defendants were all scheduled for court Friday afternoon for the hearing that will clear their names a full 27 years after the deadly attack.
