Crown Heights Girl Recanted Testimony that Kept Man in Prison for Almost a Year
A Brooklyn man spent nearly a year behind bars on charges he abused an Orthodox Jewish woman — even though she recanted her accusation a day after making it.
Darrell Dula, 25, was released Tuesday and will likely have the case against him dropped after being in jail since June 28, 2011.
“I feel good. Thank God,” Dula told the Daily News Tuesday night as he played with his 3-year-old son for the first time in a year in front of his Crown Heights home.
“I’m glad to be home with my family,” he said. “I’m still in shock. I’m traumatized. It wasn’t a good experience. They took me away on my son’s birthday. It was heartbreaking.”
The stunning turn of events came after Brooklyn prosecutors turned over a newly discovered statement that Dula’s 22-year-old accuser made to cops in which she says he never abused her.
That evidence came 10 months too late, Dula’s lawyer, James Phillips, said during a hearing Tuesday in Brooklyn Supreme Court.
The retraction is a “smoking gun that destroys the credibility of this witness,” Phillips said. “The only witness against my client admitted to lying.”
The alleged victim made a complaint to police on March 31, 2010, accusing Dula and his pal Damien Crooks, 32, of being part of a crew who abused, beat and ‘pimped her out’ since age 13.
A day later, the woman told detectives she was a harlot for five years and made up the allegation, records show.
“I once again asked [her] if she was abused,” a detective wrote in a police report after the interview. “She told me ‘no’ and stated to me, ‘Can’t a ***** change her ways?’ ”
The woman also signed a recantation, but the case proceeded and in spring 2011, a grand jury voted to indict Dula, Crooks and two others who were allegedly part of the crew.
His lawyers only learned of the recantation and police interview this week. The documents were turned over by prosecutor Rebecca Gingold, who replaced Assistant District Attorney Abbie Greenberger on the case after she recently left her job.
Gingold told Justice Wayne Ozzi that in reviewing, she noticed the documents missing. She tracked them down and immediately turned them over to Phillips.
Dula cheered the news.
“I just want to make up for lost time,” he said. “I’m just glad to be reunited with my son. I want to get a job and go back to school.”
Greenberger could not be reached.
