March 24, 2013

(JTA) — A man whose sentence was overturned after serving 23 years for the killing of a Brooklyn rabbi had a massive heart attack a day after being freed.

David Ranta, 58, had a heart attack last Friday. A New York State Supreme Court judge in Brooklyn had released him from jail the previous day in the February 1990 killing of Rabbi Chaskel Werzberger.

No physical evidence had linked Ranta, an unemployed drug addict, to the fatal shooting of Werzberger in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.

A jury found Ranta guilty in May 1991 based on witness testimony and circumstantial evidence. He was sentenced to 37 1/2 years in prison.

Ranta was released following a new probe in which witnesses recanted and evidence suggested another man who died in a car accident months after the shooting was the shooter.

Leaving the court on March 21, Ranta said, “I’m overwhelmed. I feel like I’m under water, swimming,” AP reported. “Like I said from the beginning, I had nothing to do with this case.”

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