DETROIT – A Detroit man was released from prison Wednesday after a judge granted him a new trial.
Bernard Young was sent to prison on child sex charges in 1989, but last year, one of his accusers took back his testimony and said the wrong man was convicted.
Young was released from prison around 3:15 p.m. Wednesday.
This is the third case of wrongfully accused men being freed from prison Local 4 has covered in the last year. Davontae Sanford was released in June, LeMarr Monson was released last week, and now Young was freed after spending 27 years behind bars.
Young, 58, was MDOC prisoner No. 203563 at the Lakeland Correctional Facility in Coldwater. He served 27 years of a 60-100-year sentence for six counts of criminal sexual conduct.
The earliest Young could have expected to leave prison was 2038. He would have been 79 years old. But 21 years before that, he's a free man after his family paid $5,000 bail.
"I know that William did it and for a fact Bernard did not do it," Thomas Tadlock said in September in court.
The case against Young crumbled when Tadlock, a young sexual assault victim who was 6 years old when the incident happened, recanted his 1989 testimony against Young.
"An innocent man is sitting in prison," Tadlock said.
"William" was his mother's boyfriend, and Tadlock said she knew about the abuse at the time and didn't do anything about it. She also allowed Young to take the fall.
Why did a little boy help send a man to prison this way? Tadlock said it was for fear of his mother's boyfriend.
"He was going to kill me, kill my mom and my family" Tadlock said. "He said he was going to do it."
The Wayne County Prosecutor's Office disagreed with the release and is appealing the judge's decision, including the $5,000 bond.
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