Convicted killer in slaying of rabbi that shook New York tries to clear his name

 

Carl Miller insists he wasn’t in Brooklyn the morning of Oct. 25, 1979, the day he turned 19 and Rabbi David Okunov was killed in Crown Heights by a gunman who shot him from 6 inches away before fleeing with his prayer bag.

Nearly 46 years later, Miller, who was convicted of murder and served 30 years in state prison, is hoping to clear his name.

“I don’t know anything about what happened,” Miller, now 64, told the Daily News in an interview at his lawyer’s office. ” And I wasn’t even near where it happened.”

Okunov, 68, who had recently emigrated from Russia to avoid religious persecution, was killed on his way to morning prayers. He left his home on Crown St., turned left onto Troy Ave., then turned right onto Montgomery St. Moments later, he was confronted and shot by a gunman armed with a .32-caliber handgun, the bullet striking him in his right eyebrow.

Hours later, at least 2,000 mourners marched through the streets for Okunov’s funeral, according to media reports at the time. Then-Gov. Hugh Carey said he was “horrified” by the murder, which occurred at a time of inflamed tensions between Hasidic and Black residents.

The Brooklyn DA’s office believes they got the right guy and is fighting Miller’s effort. Okanuv’s family members could not be reached for comment.

In court papers, Miller’s lawyer. James Henning, said the case against his client was built on the constantly changing story provided by Darryl Brown, who was 16 at the time of the murder and lived in the same Crown Heights building as Miller. In fact, the court papers said, Brown first told police he woke at 8 a.m. the day of the murder, 80 minutes after Okunov was shot.

 “Miller was prosecuted on the scantest of evidence,” Henning wrote in the motion to vacate, filed in Brooklyn Supreme Court May 9, 2024.  “There is no dispute that the investigative focus on Miller and his arrest, indictment and conviction were based entirely on the word of Darryl Brown, an inconsistent witness, who was initially a suspect in Rabbi Okunov’s murder and whose story changed repeatedly.”

The motion claims that prosecutors failed to turn over exculpatory evidence — that Brown himself was at some point considered a suspect and stood in a lineup. It also says Miller stood in two lineups but was not picked by either witness, both of whom had described a man roughly 5 feet 9 inches tall and slim, about 150 pounds, running from the crime scene holding the prayer bag. Miller at the time was recorded as 6 feet 1 inch tall and 174 pounds.

One of those witnesses, a retired dress cutter who was walking his dog, has since died. The other, Chanina Sperlin, who was 16 at the time, saw the man with the prayer bag run to a building on Crown St. inside which police later found property belonging to Brown, according to court papers. The prayer bag was never found.

Henning told The News that of the six exoneration cases he’s worked on the evidence in this case “is the weakest I’ve ever seen.”

The office of Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez argues in court papers that the conviction should stand.

The papers noted that the DA’s Conviction Review Unit twice looked over the case — even investigating, following a tip, that a woman had killed the rabbi — and both times closed out its probe.

The court papers noted that Brown and Sperlin wouldn’t cooperate with its review.

At a Feb. 19 hearing, Miller’s trial lawyer, Howard Weiswasser, said he was not aware during the trial that two witnesses had viewed a lineup with Brown in it. He also said he did not believe he had been given by trial prosecutors a statement in which Brown the day before the murder said he wanted to rob an old Jewish man.

 “Because had I had the statement at the time of trial, I would have cross-examined [Brown] on it,” Weiswasser said at the hearing. “And having reviewed the trial transcript I did not cross examine on it.”

The same day, the long-retired lead detective on the case, Thomas Sorrentino, could not recall much about the investigation, including specific names as well as his interview of Brown.

He remembers a few days later being picked up on a warrant related to an assault case for which he missed a court appearance, remembers detectives telling him he had been picked out of a lineup — which it turned out he hadn’t — and remembers that police were certain he was the killer.

“‘You might as well confess.'” Miller said he recalls being told. “I said, ‘Confess about what? I wasn’t there.’

“They were trying to put me some place I wasn’t.”

Miller was charged then convicted on Sept. 18, 1980. A month later he was sentenced to 25 years to life.

He said he was determined from the start to clear his name, but various attempts to get lawyers to take his case and to get records and documents through the Freedom of Information Law failed until he met Henning. Miller’s motion to vacate his conviction was given a boost when Judge Guy Mangano on Jan. 10 ordered a hearing, though a decision in the case is not expected any time soon.

Miller said he is trying to clear his name so his two grandchildren can know the truth.

“They need to know who their grandfather is,” Miller said. “This is something I don’t want them to be a part of, knowing their grandfather is a convicted murderer.

“That’s why I’m fighting for this.”