Wednesday, December 9, 2020. New York City – Today, December 9th, 2020, it is the 6th anniversary of Prakash Churaman’s arrest and interrogation with no lawyer present resulting in a false confession that he has been fighting to this day. Prakash was 15 years old when NYPD detectives coerced his confession.
Supporters of Prakash Churaman ask people to join them today, Wednesday, December 9, 2020, “to protest the corrupt practices of the NYPD and the New York state criminal court system.”
People will gather in front of the Queens County Criminal Court at 1:45 PM. This is the address: 125-01 Queens Blvd, Queens, NY 11415. Train E to the station “Union Turnpike – Kew Gardens”.
Call and email the Queens District Attorney’s Office.
If you can not attend the rally, then you can call and email the Queens District Attorney’s Office to urge that they drop all charges against Prakash or at least allow him to go home while he awaits trial. Call 718-286-6315 and write to qdacommunications@queensda.org. Melinda Katz is the District attorney of Queens County.
No DNA linking Prakash Churaman to the scene was ever found.
The Instagram account freeprakashchuraman says, “We want a larger, more inclusive understanding of justice. Prakash’s story is one shared by countless others. We want freedom and justice for them too. Prakash would like to start a foundation committed to helping young people trapped in the maze of the criminal justice system, a system where politicians build careers by treating children like animals. Prakash wants funding from the city to start his foundation, the money can come out of the exorbitant NYPD budget.
When Prakash Churaman was only 15 years old he was arrested and charged with the murder of his best friend. Remembering his arrest he said, “I was young man, I was very young and I did not know anything. I did not know what was going on.” At the time he did not even know his friend had been killed. “I was lost, like literally lost. I didn’t even know he was dead until that day, until I was brought into the precinct and eventually interrogated.”
He spent hours in an interrogation room with two NYPD detectives, who coerced him into making a false confession. His mother was there and the detectives convinced her to yell and scream at him so he would confess. “I felt trapped,” he remembers, “I felt like I had no other choice but to just say whatever they wanted to hear… Throughout the tape, you know you hear me say, quote un quote, ‘Alright, I’m gonna say what you guys want to hear.’”
Prakash waited four long years in detention before his trial, including time at the notorious Rikers Island penal colony. In 2018, he was convicted and eventually given a life sentence, which means he was sentenced to death by incarceration. But he continues to resist and maintain his innocence. This year his conviction was overturned and he has a chance at a new trial because the court ruled he should have been allowed to present an expert witness on juvenile false confessions. But he was not given bail and was instead remanded back to Rikers, amidst the pandemic. “We’re stuck in the house,” he said. “Stuck in the housing area all day until our next court date. Basically just stuck, stuck in a maze, clueless until you know, you find your next route.”
Ron Kuby is his pro-bono lawyer. Kuby called his client’s teen years “a remarkably sad story.” Ron Kuby has a long career of taking on difficult cases while championing liberal causes.
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