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Acting State Supreme Court Justice Patricia Harrington ordered a new trial for Nassau County resident Christopher Ellis, age 51, of Hempstead on Monday, Aug. 9.
Ellis was convicted in 1993 of the second-degree murder of 25-year-old Harry Joseph Healy on Saturday, Sept. 29, 1990, by a jury based on testimony from a single eyewitness and without forensic or physical evidence.
The judge made the ruling after Ellis’ attorney, Ilann Maazel, alleged that police hid evidence and coerced confessions during the investigation.
Ellis was 20-years-old when police said he killed Healy in a robbery gone wrong outside an Arby's just two blocks away from the Hofstra campus along with two other men.
Healy was also eating with friends when two men approached and demanded they get up, one of the men pulled out a gun and fired a single shot, killing the young assistant college coach.
Witnesses could not agree on which man pulled the trigger.
The sticking point for the release was that notes from a detective involved in the case were not turned over to the defense before the trial which provided information of at least two identifiable people with claimed to have killed Healy.
The notes should have been provided by law, which led to Ellis' release, but he could still face a retrial, according to the judge.
Nassau County District Attorney's office spokesman Brendan Brosh said in a statement on Monday that his office's Conviction Integrity Unit, which started reviewing the trial in 2019, found the notes in the Nassau County Police Department's case file and then disclosed them to the defense.
Brosh said his office "has no basis to believe that the failure to disclose the notes was intentional, or that the prosecutor was even aware of their existence."
He added that the unit found no basis that the failure to disclose was intentional, or that the prosecutor was even aware of their existence.
"The NCDA has not made a determination whether Mr. Ellis will be retried for the homicide of Mr. Healy," Brosh said. "Our condolences remain with family and friends of Joseph Healy, as well as his many friends and colleagues at Hofstra University."
When released on Monday, Ellis, who has denied the killing, said he knows the issue is not over, but he planned to stop for rum-raisin ice cream on his way home.
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