In 1992, Andres Barretto was fatally shot in a New York subway station. Emmanuelle Cooper was convicted of the crime and was handed a 25-years-to-life sentence.

But Cooper’s defense lawyers said that police investigators interviewing informant Rico Sanchez on an unrelated shooting then pointed to Cooper’s photograph. They told him that if he identified Cooper as the perpetrator in the Barretto homicide case, Sanchez would not be charged on the earlier crime. Sanchez' induced eye-witness testimony was a key part of the evidence that convicted Emmanuelle Cooper.

• Sanchez said his statement linking Cooper to the homicide was a claim that “detectives fed to me.”

Last January, Emmanuelle Cooper's homicide conviction was tossed, following a 27-year prison stint. 

Cooper was embraced by his wife, Sandy, who had always believed in his innocence. “I’m a free man now,” Cooper told the New York Daily News. “I don’t have that burden on my back.”