From his home in Guyana, Brian Kendall says he has spent half his life trying to prove a basic point: that he did not commit the killing that cost him his youth and his place in the United States. The 55-year-old, whose 1988 manslaughter conviction was vacated last year, has now filed a federal lawsuit that claims Brooklyn detectives built a bogus case that sent him to prison and ultimately led to his deportation. The suit accuses the NYPD of framing him by manufacturing identifications, hiding evidence that could have cleared him and pressuring witnesses until they changed their stories.
Federal Complaint Says Detectives Manufactured Case
According to the complaint filed in Brooklyn federal court, available on DocumentCloud, detectives from the NYPD’s Brooklyn South Homicide Squad allegedly ignored eyewitness accounts that pointed to a different shooter and instead built a case around statements they had shaped. The filing says officers used suggestive photo arrays, withheld exculpatory witness statements and kept leaning on witnesses until they implicated Kendall.
Case Background
Prosecutors said Kendall was 17 years old when he was arrested after the Feb. 24, 1988, shooting of Raphael Reyes inside a Cortelyou Road game room. In 1989, he pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in exchange for a reduced sentence, a deal he accepted to avoid a possible life term.
The Legal Aid Society, which pushed for the conviction to be vacated, says Kendall served roughly 16 years before he was paroled in 2004 and deported to Guyana in 2005. His lawyers say he was not fully warned about the immigration consequences when he took the plea.
CRU Review and Vacatur
Brooklyn’s Conviction Review Unit reopened the case in 2022 and, after examining contemporaneous 911 recordings, police reports and witness interviews, concluded that Kendall was “likely innocent.” The Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office moved to vacate the conviction and dismiss the indictment in July 2025, saying the reinvestigation exposed serious weaknesses in the original probe and in how evidence had been turned over to the defense. A statement from the DA’s office lays out the CRU’s findings.
What the Suit Alleges
The lawsuit says several witnesses consistently described the gunman as a short, heavyset man in his mid-20s, a description that did not match Kendall at the time. One witness allegedly placed the shooter inside the game room while Kendall was at a machine, according to the filing.
The complaint further alleges that police repeatedly showed photo arrays until an identification was made, a process Kendall’s legal team argues tainted the reliability of the eyewitness accounts.
Legal Ramifications
The suit names New York City, a former detective and the estates of two deceased officers as defendants and seeks monetary damages, though it does not specify an amount. “We’ll review the case and respond in the litigation,” city Law Department spokesperson Nicholas Paolucci told the Brooklyn Eagle. Kendall’s attorneys say the lawsuit is aimed at holding those involved in the original investigation accountable.
Part of a Wider Review
The Conviction Review Unit has vacated dozens of convictions since its creation in 2014, and prosecutors say Kendall’s case is among more than 40 that have been cleared after CRU review. Advocates and the DA’s office argue that the case spotlights lingering problems that the unit is meant to address, including shaky eyewitness identifications and failures to disclose key evidence to the defense.
The federal lawsuit now heads into discovery. Kendall and his lawyers say they hope the litigation forces fuller answers about how the original investigation was handled and bolsters efforts to bring him back to the United States. As reported in coverage of his case, Kendall has already sought a path back after his deportation, and his legal team says the suit is part of a broader push to reclaim what he lost.
