From the moment police arrested him that morning of May 16, 1999, for the attempted murder and robbery of a Boston University freshman in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx, Angel Cordero has professed his innocence.
That’s hardly surprising from someone in prison for a major crime.

But in Cordero’s case, there’s a mountain of evidence that he is telling the truth. There are sworn statements from nearly a dozen witnesses who say he was not involved. There’s even a confession from the man who claims he was the main assailant but was never charged.

was convicted despite all that, and spent 13 years in prison until his parole last week.

Now that he is free, Cordero still wants to clear his name.

This column revealed in 2007 that Dario Rodriguez, a drug dealer with a long rap sheet, had confessed to committing the actual crime. Rodriguez was a neighborhood acquaintance of Cordero and had been a witness for the prosecution at the original trial.

In a jailhouse interview, Rodriguez told me he stabbed and robbed college freshman Jason Mercado that morning during a chaotic street fight at the end of a neighborhood party. He then repeated that account under oath at a Bronx Supreme Court hearing.

“I lied on the stand [at the original trial\] because the prosecutor threatened to revoke my parole for another arrest if I didn’t testify against Angel,” Rodriguez told me. “But I can’t sleep at night from the guilt.”

The judge who heard the recantation ruled in January 2008 that it was “utterly incredible and unworthy of belief.” Since then, however, Cordero’s lawyers have amassed more testimony that supports that recantation.

According to the official version at trial, Mercado was accosted by a group of strangers from the party while he was walking to his parents’ home. Four plainclothes cops who arrived in the midst of the attack quickly nabbed five men out of the crowd: Cordero, his younger brother Ramon Rivas, Pierre Robinson, Julio Sanchez and Gregory Martin.

They promptly charged Cordero, who had never been in trouble with the law, with stabbing Mercado several times in the chest. The others were charged with beating and robbing the victim.

Cordero and his brother pleaded innocent. The other three, all of whom had criminal records, pleaded guilty. But the three confessed assailants also told police that Cordero and his brother were not involved. The stabber, they all said, was a neighborhood tough named “Set It.”

Dario Rodriguez’s nickname was “Set It.”

During the trial, Cordero and his brother testified that they had gone to a nearby bodega from the party, then heard a commotion on the street. They walked over to see what was happening and saw Rodriguez stabbing the victim.

When cops arrived, they grabbed Cordero, who angrily insisted he was a bystander and who made the mistake of resisting arrest.

Prosecutors even called drug-dealer Rodriguez to the stand. He testified that he was not present when the fight erupted, but was at home with his girlfriend.

After two days of deliberation, a jury convicted Cordero and his brother. As luck would have it, Cordero and Rodriguez looked “freakishly alike” in features and skin tone and both were wearing white T-shirts and had short haircuts that night, according to Cordero’s lawyer, Barry Pollack of the Innocence Project.

Rodriguez has since claimed that the cops did grab him at the scene with the bloody knife in his hand and knocked him to the ground. But they became momentarily distracted while subduing Cordero, and Rodriguez managed to run away with the knife.

During the past few years, Cordero’s lawyers have discovered additional evidence that Rodriguez lied at trial. His girlfriend, it turns out, was staying in a homeless shelter that night. Witnesses the police never bothered to interview have said in sworn statements that they saw Rodriguez after the incident looking frantic, his shirt bloodied and carrying a bloody knife. Several say Rodriguez confided to them that he had stabbed Mercado.

Cordero’s biggest supporter the past few years has been his wife, Michelle. A social worker and childhood friend, she married him while he was still in prison. She now runs the website of the campaign to exonerate him.
“There aren’t words to express how happy I am he’s home,” Michelle Cordero said. “But we won’t rest until Angel is completely exonerated.”