All charges dropped against Prakash Churaman of Queens

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Indian-American Prakash Churaman of Queens, who was just 15 when charged with murder almost 8 years ago, was freed Monday June 6, 2022, when all charges against him were dropped.

The Queens Daily Eagle reported Churaman saying “I feel free now – free. No doubt, no hesitation, no uncertainty hanging over my shoulders,” after walking out of the Queens Criminal Court.

Over the years, public support for freeing Churaman grew and social media groups called for his acquittal.

Even though Churaman is now free prosecutors said in a statement quoted in the Daily Eagle, that the charges in his indictment as well conviction continue to be true in the 2014 killing of Taquaine Clark, 21, in a botched robbery attempt by several youth.

Churaman spent 4 years on Riker’s island as a teen, and several years in a New York prison before he was allowed to stay with his mother and child in Queens under house arrest, after his conviction was overturned, the news report said. He has made numerous appearances in court since then in the hope of getting a rehearing date, but is now a free man with all charges dropped.

The Queens District Attorney’s Office had brought the murder charges against Churaman when he was a juvenile, and according to the news report, but this time round, on June 6, 2022, prosecutors filed to drop all charges against the young man just as his retrial date was about to decided in a few days, the news report said.

Churaman was convicted in 2020. But an appellate court in the city recently overturned his conviction. And Churaman’s lawyers also filed a motion recently which said most of the charges filed against him were redundant because he was a juvenile. According to the Queens Daily Eagle, back in 2018, Queens Supreme Court Justice Kenneth Holder, had denied Churaman’s defense team their request to put an expert on juvenile forced confessions, on the stand.

In the courtroom Monday, when Churaman, who thought he was going to hear about the date of his retrial, was overjoyed when he came to know the case was basically going to be dismissed, the news report said.