A Queens man who spent eight of his 38 years in jail for a murder he says he didn’t commit won a retrial Wednesday.
Tejpal Singh’s murder conviction was set aside by Queens Supreme Court Justice Michael Aloise after two key witnesses recanted their claim that he gunned down 19-year-old Kamaljit Singh in 1996.
During five weeks of hearings Tejpal’s attorney, Stephen Murphy, grilled Ramjit “Rocky” Singh, who claimed at Tejpal’s trial that he was the drive-by shooter.
Rocky, who was wounded in the shooting which stemmed from a feud between two Richmond Hill Sikh groups, denied he attended meetings where he allegedly asked for $500,000 to alter his story.
But Murphy played taped recordings from 2009 and 2011 in which Rocky and other men discussed the bribery demand. Rocky admitted his voice was on the recordings but denied he offered to recant his accusation.
A second witness to the shooting, Sukhjinder “Kala” Singh, admitted to prosecutors that he lied about attending the bribery meetings.
Nevertheless, prosecutors argued that all the witnesses called by Murphy should be discredited because of inconsistent testimony, missing tape recordings of the conversations and the lack of other witnesses, who allegedly have kept quiet in order to frame Tejpal.
But Aloise granted a retrial based on Rocky and Kala’s recanted testimony. The judge denied a request for bail and scheduled proceedings for a new trial for June 5.
christina.carrega@nypost.com