He spent 27 years in prison. Five witnesses say someone else committed the murder

The Office of the Brooklyn District Attorney has overturned 37 felony convictions in the last 10 years, the most in New York State. Anthony Green says his murder conviction should be next.

And in an unusual twist, Charles Linehan — a former investigator who uncovered key evidence in Green’s case — now leads the unit that will decide on his bid for exoneration.

“I got arrested and charged for crimes that I didn’t do,” said Green.

In 1990, Anthony Green was found guilty of fatally shooting Demetrius “Mimi” Ware on Saratoga Avenue in Brooklyn’s Ocean Hill section. After Green went to prison, he enlisted Linehan for help in proving his innocence. Linehan came through. In his re-investigation of the killing, Linehan obtained a sworn statement from a man who lives near the murder scene, suggesting his own son was most likely the killer.

In an affidavit signed in March of 2020, Kevin Fields said his son, Rick Morrison, disappeared from the neighborhood after Mimi Ware was shot. In a phone call a few weeks after the sidewalk murder, Fields said his son admitted that “he had a beef with Mimi.” In the same affidavit, Fields added he “believed that Rick had killed Mimi, so I told him to lay low.” Rick Morrison, known then in the neighborhood as “Little Rick,” was, himself, shot and killed about a year after that phone call.

On top of the affidavit from Kevin Fields, Anthony Green has also obtained sworn statements from four other witnesses who say they saw “Little Rick” Morrison shot Mimi Ware – with their own eyes. Those eyewitnesses include:

• Alvida Woods, a former teenage girlfriend of Rick Morrison, who swore “I saw Rick pull a gun out of his pants and fire at Mimi.”
• Shemene Minter, a former Ocean Hill neighbor, who swore “I saw Little Rick pull out a gun and shoot the other guy several times.”
• Agnes Foster, a woman who said she and her friends were sitting on lawn chairs on Saratoga Avenue at the time of the murder and swore, “I saw ‘Ricky’ point a large square-like gun and start shooting at ‘Mimi.’”
• Linda Foster, Agnes Foster’s sister, who swore “we were picking up our chairs when Ricky started shooting” and “I heard Ricky shooting many times.”

In their sworn statements, Minter and the Foster sisters said NYPD investigators interviewed them about their eyewitness accounts but seemed to be focused only on Anthony Green as a suspect.

Nicholas Liakas, Green’s civil attorney, says the investigative record suggests police wanted to pin the crime on Green and ignored other evidence that didn’t fit their narrative.

“This was an orchestrated effort to lock somebody up who they pre-judged as guilty,” Liakas said.

Two years after obtaining key evidence suggesting Anthony Green may be innocent, Charles Linehan was appointed to lead the Brooklyn Conviction Review Unit (CRU), which is currently considering whether the DA should now move to vacate Anthony Green’s conviction. But the DA’s official re-investigation has now gone on for more than two years and Green is becoming impatient.

“With all the evidence he has, what are we continuing to wait for?” Green said. “It’s been 40 years.”

Oren Yaniv, a spokesman for Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez, said the office is methodically considering all the new evidence, but stressed Green is the one who asked the CRU to re-examine his case after a judge granted him a hearing to consider the merits of his wrongful conviction claim in court.

“[The CRU] is working diligently and collaboratively on this complex reinvestigation which pertains to events from nearly four decades ago,” Yaniv wrote in an email to the I-Team. “Given its track record, it is not surprising that Mr. Green asked the CRU to review his case even after a post-conviction court hearing had been granted to him, but he’s free to pursue that remedy at any time.”

The case against Anthony Green was based primarily on the testimony of two women – Vicky Colon, the teenage mother of Green’s unborn child, who said she saw him pull the trigger, and Cindy Pressley, a surprise witness at trial who testified she was in the car with Green as he drove to the murder scene.

After Green was convicted, Colon recanted her story – claiming she lied on the stand because detectives and prosecutors threatened to take her unborn child if she didn’t testify against Green.

Colon has since died of breast cancer. None of the women who swore they saw Rick Morrison shoot Mimi Ware would agree to do an interview with the I-Team. The I-Team was unable to reach family of Demetrius “Mimi” Ware, the murder victim, for comment.

After taking over the CRU, Linehan re-interviewed Pressley who said Little Rick Morrison could have been the shooter but she wasn’t sure. In an audio recording of the re-interview, Pressley told Linehan police kept her in a hotel for weeks before the trial while she was coached on what to say on the stand..

“How long were you in the hotel?” asked Linehan.

“Maybe a couple weeks,” Pressley responded. “They just prepped me for the court.”

The NYPD did not respond to the I-Team’s email seeking comment on the allegation a key witness was held in a hotel for weeks, but in the audio recording, Linehan expressed concern about the practice.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “Them behaving like that is not something we would have had them do.”

Liakas said he believes the CRU is taking Anthony Green’s wrongful conviction claim seriously – but he also expressed concern that his client has already spent decades in prison – and cannot move on with his life without shedding the label “murderer.”

“You have the Conviction Review Unit, which I think has great intention,” Liakas said. “But there’s a proverb that says the road to hell is paved with good intentions and even if there are good intentions here, he’s still going through hell.”