More than 30 years after they were wrongly convicted of setting a deadly fire in Brooklyn, three men have officially been cleared of any crime.
A Brooklyn judge on Wednesday threw out the convictions against William Vasquez, Amaury Villalobos, and Raymond Mora.
The were convicted of setting the fire at a Park Slope townhouse that killed a woman and her five kids in 1980.
But Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson says the conviction was based on a lying witness and outdated fire science.
Vasquez and Villalobos were actually paroled in 2012, but attended the court hearing Wednesday.
Mora died in prison in 1989.
"I thought I was gonna be exonerated in court because I knew in my heart that I didn't commit the crime. I lost 33 and a half years of my life. I went in at 30, I come out at 65," Vasquez said.
"The facts are that a witness testified falsely or whether a conviction was based in part on outdated science. It doesn't matter to us. What matters to us is that we get to the truth and that we do not have innocent men in prison for murders that they did not commit," Thompson added.
The three men represent the 15th, 16th and 17th wrongful convictions overturned by Thompson's office since he became DA last year.