London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Oct 08, 2025

After decades in prison, 3 men cleared in notorious 1995 murder of NYC subway clerk

After decades in prison, 3 men cleared in notorious 1995 murder of NYC subway clerk

Parallels were drawn between the deadly arson and a scene in the movie "Money Train."

After decades in prison, three men were cleared Friday in one of the most horrifying crimes of New York's violent 1990s — the killing of a clerk who was set on fire in a subway toll booth.

A judge dismissed the murder convictions of Vincent Ellerbe, James Irons and Thomas Malik after prosecutors said the case was built on falsehood-filled confessions, shaky witness identifications and other flawed evidence.

The three confessed to and were convicted of murdering token seller Harry Kaufman in 1995. The case resounded from New York to Washington to Hollywood, after parallels were drawn between the deadly arson and a scene in the movie "Money Train," which had been released days earlier.

Malik and Irons, both 45, left court free for the first time in over a quarter-century. Ellerbe, 44, was paroled in 2020.

James Irons, center, holds his grand nephew Michael, 5, as he leaves Brooklyn Supreme Court following his exoneration, Friday July 15, 2022, in New York.


"What happened to us can never be fixed," Ellerbe told the court as he quietly described the ordeal of prison: "They break you, or they turn you into a monster."

Malik, still absorbing what happened as he left court, said it was "definitely too little, too late, but everything takes time. I just was happy that I was able to stand strong."

Irons said only that he felt "great."

The men have long said they were coerced into falsely confessing in the case, which had a lead detective who later was repeatedly accused of forcing confessions and framing suspects. Prosecutors acknowledged that history on Friday but didn't delve into how the detectives obtained the confessions in Kaufman's case.

While there was at least one other potential suspect early in the investigation, it's unclear whether police or prosecutors plan to - or can - pursue any further investigation decades later.

Kaufman was attacked Nov. 26, 1995, while working an overnight shift on overtime to put away extra money for his son's future college tuition. The attackers first tried to rob him, then squirted gasoline through the tollbooth coin slot and ignited the fuel with matches while he pleaded, "Don't light it!" authorities said at the time. The booth exploded, and the 50-year-old Kaufman ran from it in flames. The married father died two weeks later.

A color guard readies their flags as pallbearers carry the remains of token clerk Harry Kaufman after funeral services, in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Wednesday, Dec, 13, 1995.


Police scoured for suspects and eventually came to question Irons, getting a confession that he was acting as a lookout. He implicated Malik and Ellerbe as the men who had torched the tollbooth.

In fact, Irons was home with his mother, around the corner from the subway station, when he heard the explosion and called 911 - a call that was never played for the jury at his trial, said his lawyer, David Shanies.

From their arrests on, the men maintained that they had been coerced into false confessions, with Malik saying that Detective Louis Scarcella had screamed at him and slammed his head into a locker. Scarcella testified that he cursed, pounded a table and was trying to scare the then-18-year-old Malik, but didn't beat him.

Prosecutors said their review found that Scarcella and his partner fed important details about the crime scene to Irons and Malik while shrugging off inconsistencies in their confessions.

For instance, Irons said he had been able to see his supposed accomplices jump into a getaway car, although it was parked a block away and around a corner; Malik described the car differently from a witness; Ellerbe described four attackers and said he had sprayed gasoline on the outside of the tollbooth, when in fact it was poured in the coin slot.

"More than 25 years later, we do not have any confidence in the integrity of those convictions," assistant District Attorney Lori Glachman told the court.

At the time, Scarcella was a star Brooklyn homicide detective in a city reeling from crime. Citywide, killings topped more than 2,200 at their 1990 peak; that compares to 488 last year and a low of 295 in 2018.

But after questions accumulated about Scarcella's tactics, the Brooklyn district attorney's office began in 2013 to review scores of cases that he had worked.

Scarcella, who retired in 2000, has denied any wrongdoing. While more than a dozen convictions in his cases have been overturned, prosecutors have stood by scores of others.

The attack bore some resemblance to a scene in "Money Train," an action movie released four days. Then-Senate Majority Leader and Republican presidential hopeful Bob Dole took to the Senate floor to call for a boycott of the movie.

Authorities gave mixed signals over the years about whether they believed the film had inspired the killing.

Brooklyn prosecutors' reexamination of old convictions is widely viewed as one of the most ambitious of its kind. In New York and around the country, such efforts have become more common over the last 15 years as DNA evidence, a growing body of research on false confessions, and other factors made some prosecutors feel compelled to become more open to investigating wrongful conviction claims.

"The findings of an exhaustive, years-long reinvestigation of this case leave us unable to stand by the convictions,"

Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said in a release. "Above all, my obligation is to do justice, and because of the serious problems with the evidence on which these convictions are based, we must move to vacate them and acknowledge the harm done to these men by this failure of our system."

According to the Gonzalez, the work of the Conviction Review Unit has resulted in 33 convictions being vacated since 2014. Currently, the unit has approximately 50 open investigations.

Gonzalez pledged to continue the investigation of the 1995 killing.

"My heart aches for the Kaufman family and my office remains resolute in our commitment to seek justice for victims, while ensuring fairness to all," he said.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×