‘Sing Sing’ Actor JJ Velazquez Exonerated After 23 Years In Prison For Wrongful Murder Conviction: ‘I’m Getting Part Of My Dignity Back’

'This is not a celebration,' Velazquez said. 'This is an indictment of the system.'

Actor and activist Jon-Adrian “JJ” Velazquez was exonerated nearly 30 years after being convicted of a crime he did not commit.

On Monday, a New York judge overturned Velazquez’s conviction in the 1998 murder of a retired New York City police officer, NBC News reports. It took only four minutes to deliver the ruling, a stark contrast to the 27 years Velazquez spent as a victim of a flawed criminal justice system.

Velazquez was emotional, fighting back tears, pounding his chest, and pumping his fist before embracing friends and family after being officially exonerated. “Twenty-seven years!” his mom exclaimed through cries.

“I do want to recognize the extraordinary achievements of Mr. Velazquez throughout the time he was incarcerated and since his release,” New York Supreme Court Justice Abraham Clott told a packed courtroom.

Velazquez spoke of missing out on his two sons’ lives while incarcerated. His sons were just 3 and 1 months old at the time of his arrest.

“I was kidnapped by this country and enslaved,” he said while detailing some of the horrors and trauma he suffered while imprisoned. He added, “This is not a celebration. This is an indictment of the system.”

Velazquez’s journey to exoneration was chronicled over the years after he contacted NBC News producer Dan Slepian in 2002. Whether having his story shared on Dateline NBC, a 2012 investigation, or the 2023 podcast Letters from Sing Sing, Velazquez has always maintained his innocence.

He was just 22 years old when he was arrested for the shooting death of retired police officer Albert Ward at an illegal gambling parlor in Harlem. Velazquez, accused of being the gunman, maintained that he was on a 74-minute phone call with his mother at the time of the shooting. Meanwhile, another man, identified as one of the two armed robbers, pleaded guilty to a second-degree robbery charge and was released in 2008.

Despite having an alibi supported by phone records and not matching the suspect’s description, Velazquez was still sentenced to 25 years to life. Despite a 2012 Dateline NBC investigation prompting a review by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit, the conviction was upheld.

Velazquez’s numerous efforts to have his conviction overturned were consistently denied. However, in 2022, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Post-Conviction Justice Unit decided to reinvestigate, including testing DNA on a betting slip handled by the shooter, which had not been available at the time of the original case. The results confirmed that Velazquez’s DNA was absent on this crucial evidence.

Almost a decade after the Dateline investigation, on August 17, 2021, Velazquez received executive clemency from then-New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. He was released from Sing Sing prison on September 9, 2021, after serving 23 years, eight months, and seven days. During a criminal legal reform forum in Oct. 2022, President Joe Biden issued a public apology to Velazquez.

But with the conviction still in place, Velazquez needed permission to travel, among other parole-based restrictions.

“It’s a lot deeper than discrimination. It comes down to diminishing a person’s human dignity. I’m getting a part of my dignity back,” Velazquez said ahead of his exoneration.

In 2023, Velazquez co-starred with Colman Domingo in the A24 film Sing Sing, less than a year after his release from the same prison where the film was shot. Based on a true story, the movie follows John “Divine G” Whitfield (played by Domingo), a man wrongfully imprisoned at Sing Sing. He discovers purpose through the prison’s Rehabilitation Through the Arts program alongside a group of other incarcerated men. Velazquez called the film “one of the most important things I’ve done in my life.”

Velazquez is a criminal justice reform activist and a founding member of Voices From Within, an educational initiative that tackles the issues of crime and incarceration through the perspectives of those who are incarcerated. He also hopes to do more acting in the future. Velazquez’s journey will be featured in the upcoming MSNBC docuseries, The Sing Sing Chronicles, directed by Dawn Porter.