Jailed for five years because of court backlog, cleared of murder charges

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Bronx man Michael Ikoli, jailed for five years because of court backlog, cleared of murder charges
Bt Dorian Block
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Wednesday, December 16th 2009, 1:13 PM

Michael Ikoli takes a celebratory photo in his 'not guilty' shirt Wednesday after a jury acquitted him on murder charges. Related NewsArticlesState report slams Bronx court system program designed to speed up cases, but created 'crisis'Bronx man to finally get day in court - after five years in jailJustice delayed at Bronx courthouseAccused of murder when he was just a teen, a Bronx man who waited five years for a trial finally got his day in court - and was cleared of all charges.
It took a jury just two hours to acquit 22-year-old Michael Ikoli on Tuesday.

"God is definitely good," said Ikoli's mother, who attended every day of the trial.

"I was disgusted by all of this. They took five years of my child's life, and I spent five years going back and forth to court when I knew my child was innocent," she said.

Ikoli celebrated his release by donning a sweatshirt emblazoned with the words, "not guilty," eating a dinner of fried chicken, rice and collard greens
with his family and spending time with his girlfriend.

While in jail, he said he missed the "little things."

"Being outside, talking on the phone whenever I want to," he said. "I grew up in here. I lost my whole teenage and childhood for something I didn't do," Ikoli told the News.

In 2004 he was accused of standing outside a roller-skating rink with a 15-year-old friend, Christopher Clinton, who pulled out a gun and shot two people, killing Lionel Bynoe, 21.

He sat in Rikers Island without a trial until the Daily News highlighted his plight as part of a report on the backlog of felony cases in the Bronx court system.

An experimental merger of criminal and Supreme courts in the Bronx - the only one in the state - has led to a 42% drop in the number of felony trials held in the five years since the program began.

Two weeks after the story appeared, Bronx Administrative Judge Efrain Alvarado ordered a trial for Ikoli and Clinton.

Clinton pleaded guilty at the beginning of the trial and is serving a six-year sentence.

Ikoli was carrying an unloaded gun that he said someone handed to him the night of the shooting. He claimed that he never intended to hurt anyone.

"There's an awful lot to not like about what he did, but there was nothing to indicate that he wanted to kill or seriously injure someone," said Martin Goldberg, Ikoli's lawyer.

"And there is no excuse for why it should take five years for anyone to get a trial," Goldberg said.
Ikoli's mother said she is "very concerned" about his future because even though he has a clean record, he has never lived as an adult with freedom.

"He has no skills or experience. It is very hard," she said.

"He got his GED in jail. Now we think about college."