Wrongfully convicted Brooklyn man adjusting to life outside prison after being exonerated
NEW YORK — A Brooklyn native who spent nearly 30 years behind bars for a murder he did not commit was exonerated in 2020, and he's still adjusting to life outside of prison.
He is among the hundreds of exonerations in New York in recent years. According to the National Registry of Exonerations, New York has had 347 exonerations since 1989 with 157 in New York City alone between 2014 and 2022.
Brooklyn has had the most in New York City – 40 since its Conviction Review Unit was created in 2014. Most of the exonerations are of Black men. Experts say fewer people are being wrongfully convicted today because of tools like DNA and cellphone towers.
"Why am I going to prison for something I didn't do?"
Gerard Domond was convicted for a 1987 murder in Brooklyn, but Domond says he wasn't even in the city at the time of the murder.
"I was not in New York City at all," Domond said. "[I was in] Georgia with my girlfriend at the time."
"What was going through your mind?" CBS News New York's Jennifer Bisram asked.
"This can't be happening to me. Why am I going to prison for something I didn't do? And I was like, damn, how many other people probably going through this? How many, you know, Black men from my hood?" Domond said.
He spent most of his adult life in Auburn Correctional Facility as inmate 89-A-8836, with many sleepless nights on hard jail beds, surrounded by prison guards and violence.
In 2020, he was exonerated by the Brooklyn district attorney's office after they say key information was withheld from the case.
Domond sued the city and was awarded over $13 million, but he says no amount of money can bring back all the years of his life lost and take away the nightmares and emotional trauma.
"Money doesn't cure you. Money don't do nothing for you, for the soul," Domond said. "You take the shackles off, but you're still incarcerated [in your mind] because the pain, the scars, it's never removed regardless."
The Brooklyn DA's office says no other suspect has been identified in the murder.
"I was frightened to come home"
Today, Domond lives 210 miles away from Auburn Correctional Facility at a home in New Jersey.
"I bought it because the trees over there, it makes me think of freedom," Domond said.
At age 62, he's finally living outside of prison walls in a house with his family, including his 2-year-old daughter, Laila.
"It's like time stopped at 23, and I'll continue all this. So now, I'm back out here. It's like trying to play catch up with a lot of what I missed out on," Domond said. "I grew up in jail, literally ... All those decades was gone just like that."
But four years later, he still doesn't feel free.
"I'm having a difficult time coping with things 'cause sometimes I act like I'm still locked up," Domond said. "Sometimes when I make a reference to going upstairs, I say I'm going to my cell."
He says each of his 10,775 days in prison was a struggle.
"I wanted somebody to kill me. Yeah, I really did because I didn't think I could do all that time," Domond said.
Every day now is a mental fight.
"I was frightened to come home, put it like that," Domond said. "Because this is a new world. It's like, I was comfortable, for some reason. I knew what I had to do in there, but for the most part, I'm lost out here, you know."
Domond shares that his family and building cars help him to heal.
"I'm going to therapy, but I have no peace. Money, everything, I have that, but it's still a burden. It's still... I'm searching for something, I don't know what it is ... Part of me is in there," Domond said.
But he says just like he never gave up on his innocence, he will not give up on feeling free.
