A Queens man who spent more than 16 years behind bars for a murder he didn’t commit was freed from prison Tuesday morning.
Hours after his release from the upstate Eastern Correctional Facility, Tullie Hyman, 36, said that he couldn’t wait to spend time with his family and get a new taste of his father’s home cooking.
“It’s bittersweet,” Hyman told The Post. “I feel happy and a little angry that I had to go through all this.”
After witness testimony was discredited, a judge in July threw out the conviction of Hyman in the 2002 murder of Maria Medina, 45, a Far Rockaway tenant activist.
Hyman was sentenced to 21 years to life in the death of Medina, who was hit by a stray bullet during an explosive gunfight at the Redfern Houses in March 2000.
“I’m just happy to be liberated,” said Hyman, who has maintained his innocence since Day 1. “I’m just trying to put my life back together and put this behind me the best I can and move on with my life.”
Upon his release from the state prison in Ulster County, Hyman hugged his wife and “said a prayer,” he recounted. Hyman also spoke to his daughter at college in Florida via video app.
Hyman, who will now live in Manhattan, said “I’m gonna spend some time with my father and my wife and family.
“I’m definitely happy to be home and I’m trying to reshape my life back to what it used to be.”
Hyman expressed thanks to his lawyers who worked long hours to get his conviction overturned.
Medina, the mother of three children and a tenant-patrol member, was in the lobby of her apartment building when she was killed.
The sole witness, Shaquana Ellis, identified Hyman as the shooter at his 2002 trial but later recanted her testimony.
She said she had been threatened to finger Hyman as the gunman.