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The one-time convicted killer was released on Wednesday, Feb. 21, from MIddlesex County Jail, after winning a second trial on a murder charge, according to his attorney, Joseph Mazraani.
Puskas was convicted seven years ago in the slaying of 22-year-old college student William “Billy” McCaw in New Brunswick. He'd been incarcerated for 10 years.
A Middlesex County jury deliberated five hours before returning the not guilty verdict in the six-week trial, which began on Jan. 9, Mazraani said. Puskas’ 2017 murder conviction was reversed by an appellate court in 2021 and he was moved from a state prison to the county jail.
“We are pleased that the jury finally saw this case for what it was – something the court even failed to recognize," said Mazraani, "a devastating example of what happens when cooperators and informants are not closely scrutinized, when prosecutors are not held accountable and when law enforcement fail to investigate properly."
The Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office declined to comment.
“First and foremost, my heart and prayers go out to the McCaw Family," Puskas, 49, said in a statement to Daily Voice. "Contrary to what you have been led to believe, I did not assault nor kill your beloved son."
McCaw's bloodied body was found on Feb. 15, 2014, in snow behind a home on Hartwell Street. At the time, he was a student at Kean University having transferred from Rutgers, NJ Advance Media reports. He had apparently attended a party in New Brunswick and was killed walking to a friend's house, the outlet said.
Prosecutors pursued two theories during the trials: The first was that Puskas was tired of his roommates stealing from him and took his anger out on McCaw. The second was that Puskas needed money and robbed McCaw.
But in an interview with Daily Voice, Mazraani called it "just ridiculous stuff." Cooperating witnesses with long records blamed Puskas for McCaw’s death in order to obtain lighter sentences for themselves, the attorney said.
One cooperating witness died of a drug overdose before the start of the first trial, but his antagonistic tape-recorded conversation confronting Puskas about McCaw's death was played in court anyway, Mazraani said.
It wasn't played in the second trial, he said.
Puskas concluded: "I only wish my mother were still alive to see me cleared of this injustice.”
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