He played the president on TV. But Martin Sheen played a judge in real life today, holding a courthouse press conference to pronounce an ex-cop’s convicted murderer an innocent man.
“He’s a young man on fire with the truth,” the actor said, speaking with reporters outside the Manhattan DA’s office after an hour-long visit at Sing Sing with Jon-Adrian Velasquez, 45.
“And I have assured him that we’re not going to give up his fight until he walks out of Sing Sing an innocent man.”
Velazquez has been imprisoned for the last 13 years for shooting ex-cop Albert Ward, 59, who was running an illegal gambling parlor on Frederick Douglass Blvd. in Harlem, near the 28th Precinct where he once worked. The shooter and an accomplice had broken in and announced a stickup.
Ward was shot in the face after first pulling his own gun and firing.
Sheen said he heard about the case because his lawyer and Velasquez’s lawyer are friends, and said he’s been moved to join with Velasquez’s team in urging a full review of the 1998 conviction.
The wrongful conviction integrity unit created by DA Cyrus Vance has been meeting with Velasquez’s side and is reviewing their arguments, said Robert Gottlieb.
Gottlieb said that Velasquez’s conviction was based on faulty eyewitness testimony without any supporting forensics. Two eyewitnesses have since recanted their testimony, they said. The accomplice had fingered Velasquez — who had a string of drug arrests in his past — as part of a plea deal, and served only 12 years himself.
Witnesses had described the shooter as African-American with braids. Velasquez had short hair at the time, and is Hispanic, Gottlieb said.
“He was clearly personally touched by the meeting — it was very, very emotional,” Gottlieb told the Post today of the meeting between Sheen and Velazquez.
“He was very moved, very moved by his visit,” Gottlieb said of Sheen.