The head of Brooklyn’s vaunted Conviction Review Unit has left to create a small law firm specializing in wrongful conviction cases.
Charles Linehan, 54, quietly resigned Jan. 17 after a three-year stint in charge of the 16-person unit that has garnered national headlines for the Brooklyn district attorney’s office.
During Linehan’s tenure, the unit exonerated 12 people based on recommendations made by staff in the division.
“It was the best job I ever had and the best job I ever will have,” Linehan told THE CITY in a phone interview last week.
“But I’ve been a public servant for almost 20 years now, and I had an opportunity to go out and join a good friend of mine.”
Linehan is teaming up at his new firm with Karen Neuwirth who previously worked for the Innocence Project, a city-based nonprofit that helps free wrongfully convicted people, and more recently as a private attorney handling similar cases.
Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez is looking for a replacement to head the CRU as Julio Cuevas, who served as one of Linehan’s top deputies, serves as the acting unit chief.
Linehan said he’s urged Gonzalez to permanently pick Cuevas, whom he’d worked with under former Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau in the borough’s public corruption unit.
“I think he’s got, hands down, more experience than any lawyer in the city, certainly prosecuting corrupt police officers,” said Linehan, noting he recruited Cuevas to join him when he took over Brooklyn’s CRU in January 2022.
“And Julio is just simply one of the most intelligent, ethical lawyers I’ve ever worked with,” he added.
The Brooklyn CRU, one of the first in the nation, has been used as a model for others in the city and throughout the country. Since its total revamp in 2014, it has recommended the exoneration of at least 40 people.
The Brooklyn unit has ten attorneys, three paralegals, two detective investigators, and a bureau administrator. No other New York City DA’s office has as many people in a similar unit, payroll records show.
Gonzalez wouldn’t comment on the details of the employee search but praised Lineman in a statement issued through a spokesperson:
“I am very grateful for Charlie’s tenure as the chief of our CRU and for making the best conviction review unit in the country even better. Under his leadership, the unit’s work became more streamlined, efficient and responsive. We will continue to build on these improvements, and I wish Charlie success in all future endeavors.”
Slow March to Justice
Long gaps in leadership can have repercussions on potentially innocent people’s lives, noted Linehan, who took over the CRU about six months after its previous chief had retired, leaving it without a leader.
“That was a tough period for the CRU because the ship was kind of rudderless and things slowed down,” Linehan said.
He insisted that’s not happening right now because Cuevas is in charge.
In his three years in charge, Linehan and his team chipped away at a large backlog of cases, some which had dragged on for over a decade.
THE CITY reported in October 2023 that it took 1.36 years on average before cases in the unit are concluded with either a recommendation for an exoneration or decision to let the original conviction stand.
“I’m proud of the things that we did when I was there to sort of bring the unit into the modern age,” he said. “We implemented some technological fixes that I think made the unit more efficient. We changed processes to speed things up.”
He created an online tracking system where lawyers and investigators posted their findings into a system that could be accessed by other staff members, and supervisors, in the unit.
During his tenure, he recommended exonerating three men famously convicted of pouring gasoline into a subway token booth slot and then lighting a book of matches on Nov. 26, 1995.
The booth clerk, Harry Kauffman, 50, caught fire and died two weeks later.
Lawyers for the three defendants — Vincent Ellerbe, James Irons and Thomas Malik — had argued for years that their clients were coerced into confessing by overly aggressive Brooklyn detectives, including the notorious Louis Scarcella, who has been linked to over a dozen exonerations.
The CRU took a decade before deciding to exonerate the men in July 2022, two of whom were still in state prison at the time. The case dragged on so long it extended over the tenure of three Brooklyn DAs.
“That was the first case that I did when I got in there,” Linehan recalled.
But Linehan wasn’t able to clear all of the unit’s long-pending cases before he left for the private sector.
Brian Kendall initially pled guilty to fatally shooting Rafael Reyes inside a pool hall in Brooklyn on Feb. 24, 1988.
But he later recanted, arguing he falsely admitted to the crime because his lawyer suggested that would be the fastest way to freedom and it was costing his parents too much money to pay for a private attorney.
Kendall has long argued that cops unfairly blamed him for the crime because he had a prior gun charge. He actually flagged a police car on the street after the shooting to report the crime, records show.
He was released from a New York prison in 2004 and deported to his home country of Guyana. Kendall hopes that a CRU exoneration will enable him to move back to the United States.
A decision is expected within the next month, according to people familiar with the case.
Before leaving office, Linehan sought guidance from the city’s Conflict of Interest Board to avoid any potential conflicts. The board issued a letter of guidance instructing him to stay away from any substantive communications with anyone at the Brooklyn DA’s office for a year.
As for Linehan’s new job, Rob Kuby, a longtime civil rights attorney who has handled multiple wrongful conviction cases, including Malik’s, wished him well.
“He’s certainly more competent than most,” said Kuby, while railing against “parasite” lawyers who claim to specialize in wrongful conviction cases while making tons of unrealistic promises to their clients.
“I hope he gets many innocent people out of prison.”
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