A Brooklyn man accused of shooting at three cops was facing life in prison until cell phone records showed he was miles away from the gunfire.
Judge Mark Dwyer Tuesday dropped attempted murder charges against Shane Rhooms, 22, who spent nearly three weeks in Rikers for a crime he couldn't possibly have committed.
Brooklyn prosecutors determined video footage at a Manhattan nightclub - and a phone call - proved he was nowhere near the Flatbush crime scene.
"I have my life now," said an ecstatic Rhooms, who had faced 45 years to life in prison if convicted.
"Nobody believed me," he said. "I was going to jail forever. My life was over."
Despite the stunning reversal, police stand by their investigation.
"Detectives were and remain confident of information that led them to the suspect in the first place, of the subsequent police identifications and they remain skeptical of the purported alibi," said NYPD spokesman Paul Browne.
Cops in the 75th Precinct had fingered the 22-year-old East Flatbush resident as the suspect who squeezed off six shots at them on Sept. 6.
The officers - Lt. Robert Ortlieb and Lt. Robert Henderson and Sgt. Joseph Seminara - insisted the suspect opened fire after they spotted him smoking pot.
While police shot back, the suspect was able to get away, they said. The officers picked Rhooms - who had a prior minor arrest for lighting off fireworks - out of mug shots.
Rhooms turned himself in when he learned cops were searching for him. After officers identified him in a six-man lineup, he was arraigned and spent 18 days in prison.
Rhooms maintained his innocence throughout the ordeal, telling police he had been at a reggae concert at Webster Hall during the 12:40 a.m. shooting.
His lawyer, Sam Gregory, went to work proving cops had the wrong guy. Gregory obtained surveillance video from Webster Hall showing Rhooms and his cousin, Al Gayle, entering the club at 12:01 a.m.
The clincher came when Gregory handed assistant district attorney Lew Lieberman phone records between Rhooms and Gayle at the concert; the two got separated at one point and dialed each other to reunite.
"We got the cell phone records, gave them to Lieberman. He tracked the calls to cell phone towers in Manhattan and that did it," said Gregory.
After Rhooms passed a lie detector test and spent nearly three weeks in Rikers, he was released while an investigation continued.
Yesterday, the innocent man's family called Gregory a lifesaver.
"I've got to say Sam Gregory was Superman," Rhooms' sister, Sandra Howard, said.
Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes also praised his prosecutor for his keen investigative skills.
"I am proud of ADA Lew Lieberman's work which confirmed the defendant's alibi," he said.
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