was one of the witnesses and i didn t want to admit to him what happened but that s kind of reminded me that this can t go on forever. somebody has to know what happened. how do you feel now that you have spoken up and that justice has been done? i mean, i was very happy when i was able to basically the main point was for me to get it off my chest. i wasn t sure at that point. i felt that he might not be guilty but as the first deputy who worked on this case told me, i mean, as he started to investigate it, the whole case fell apart. i guess an innocent man was in jail and is now free. the sad part is that the killer never met up. have you spoken to david ranta at all during this process or is there anything you would want to tell him now that he s released? i just feel that i was set up
david ranta and he was brought in for a lineup. the 13-year-old lieberman identified ranta as the man in the car. at trial, alleged accomplices of ranta s testified that he had killed the rabbi. he was found guilty of second degree murder and has been in prison ever since with all hopes of appeal failed. that is until two years ago, when lieberman revealed a secret, something that only he knew and that had been weighing on him for over 20 years. he admitted in an affidavit that he was coached, told by an nypd detective to pick the guy with the big nose. more troubling allegations emerged. michael baum was david ranta s original lawyer. you believe he was framed? without a doubt. without a doubt. i believed he was framed then. my concerns about that have never wavered. yes, he was framed. reporter: there has always been the question of ranta s supposed confession after the crime. when he was arrested, detectives said he admitted to being at the
when he said that to you, what did you think? i was too young back then to realize that this was a setup. i mean, to me this was basically it was just part of the process. when did you realize that david ranta probably wasn t guilty and the investigation, particularly your picking him out of the lineup, was mishandled? i think as the years went by, i remembered what happened, that somebody told me, but as more and more i found the news of innocent people getting let free in various ways, i started to think back to the trial i was involved and remembered where i was told who to pick out of the lineup. at the time, did you tell anybody else about what had happened? no. this is something i carried with me. i mean, i didn t have anybody in
angle they were also looking into and whether or not this is a real connection is not clear at this point. ed, appreciate the update on that. we ll continue to follow it. now the remarkable story of a man named david ranta who went free this afternoon in new york after serving 23 years in prison for a murder he did not commit. convicted despite passing a polygraph, convicted despite alleged abuses by the investigating officers and serious doubt from the trial judge himself. convinced that even though several witnesses now say they lied and one who you will meet in a moment says he was actually coached in the lineup who to pick. first, mary snow on how david ranta got his freedom back. the defendant s motion to vacate the judgment of conviction is granted. reporter: this is 58-year-old david ranta today. thank you, your honor. reporter: this was david ranta in 1990, when he was arrested for a murder he didn t commit, and sentenced to 37 and a half years behind bars.
you were in the courtroom. what was the emotion like there? i can only imagine. reporter: yeah, anderson, you know, it was so emotional that the judge started crying at one point, as soon as david ranta walked into that courtroom, his family members were just overcome with emotion. in particular, his daughter, priscilla, was 2 years old when her father was arrested. these family members have had their hopes dashed before so they were very nervous going into this hearing. if david ranta didn t kill the rabbi, who did? reporter: well, a woman had come forward in the 1990s to say that her husband had admitted to killing the rabbi, but her husband had been killed in a car accident not long after the murder. now, ranta s initial attorney said that he used that information to try and get the conviction overturned in the mid 90s and that didn t work. he said that there were questions about credibility that were raised, and now those