The case is one of the biggest black eyes in the history of the Miami-Dade Police Department and State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle's administration. In 2015, local cops, elected officials, and Rundle stood at a lectern and declared that then-15-year-old Deandre Charles had murdered Joseph Raksin, a prominent New York City rabbi. Rundle then revealed an utterly ridiculous witness-drawn sketch that looked more like a discarded Muppet than a human being.

But roughly a year later, prosecutors were forced to admit Charles didn't kill the rabbi. In an explosive lawsuit filed in federal court last Thursday, Charles' lawyers say they now have proof that both Rundle's office and the detective involved, Michael Brajdic, possessed evidence from the beginning that proved Charles' innocence. Yet they charged the teen anyway and plastered his face on TV next to the humiliating sketch that later went so viral it became part of a Kevin Hart comedy routine.

In short, the suit alleges the county could have (and should have) avoided ruining the life of an innocent 15-year-old by labeling him a murderer. According to the suit, Brajdic, the police detective, had ample evidence that a group of young men was involved in the killing. He was repeatedly told that Charles was home with his family when the homicide occurred.

In fact, Charles' family now says that, mere days after the killing, a confidential informant identified four men who were likely involved in the crime and tangentially knew Charles. Another civilian named two of the same men. Police interviewed one of those suspects in April 2015. The man, listed as "J.S." in the lawsuit, basically confessed. J.S. said he and three others who had been named by the tipsters were at the scene when Raksin was killed. Firearms evidence also linked one of those men to the slaying, the suit says.

But Brajdic and Rundle's office pushed the grand jury to indict Charles based on faulty DNA evidence and statements from the witness who drew the bad sketch.

"Then they whipped out that sketch that the witness drew that looked like a Sesame Street character." Facebook

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"They held this event that looked like an old 'perp walk,'" Charles' lawyer, James DeMiles, tells New Times. "They had this poster-size picture of Deandre. They said they had this DNA, this great case against him, but they didn’t have it. There were members of Miami-Dade County onstage, members of Miami-Dade PD onstage. Then they whipped out that sketch that the witness drew that looked like a Sesame Street character. So my client gets ridiculed. He was the butt of jokes of Kevin Hart. He was internationally known."

Notably, the suit also states law enforcement obtained no new evidence in the case from the day cops arrested Charles until he was released 333 days later.

Neither prosecutors nor police responded to messages from New Times yesterday. Both agencies typically do not comment on active litigation.

If proven, the case would be another scathing indictment of both MDPD and Rundle, who has been the county's top prosecutor since 1993. She was the subject of international scorn after refusing to charge four prison guards involved in the death of Darren Rainey, a mentally ill man who was placed in a scalding-hot prison shower by guards who wanted to punish him. Rainey died in there. One guard who escaped charges, Roland Clarke, later became a Miami Gardens cop — Clarke has since been repeatedly accused of official misconduct and having sex while on duty. A Miami-Dade County medical examiner, Emma Lew, dubiously claimed Rainey had no burns on his body when he died. Rundle later recommended that Lew receive an award for her work.

Rundle's office also recently bungled DNA evidence in a different, cold-case murder: In 2014, prosecutors charged a man in a 1986 killing, but in August 2018, they quietly dropped the case in what was likely a misuse of DNA forensics.

Since prosecutors dropped Charles' case in 2017, no other suspects have been arrested in connection with the murder of Rabbi Raksin, who was fatally shot August 9, 2014, while he walked toward a temple in a heavily Jewish section of North Miami Beach. Some people initially questioned whether the murder was a hate crime, but it later began to seem more like a robbery gone awry. Raksin, who lived in New York City, was in town visiting relatives. After he was killed, hundreds of supporters gathered in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, to mourn his death.

The case remained open for 16 months. Then, in 2015, prosecutors became convinced that Charles, just 14 years old at the time of the murder, had tried to rob Raksin and then killed him after discovering he had no money. Rundle's office convened a grand jury, which ultimately indicted the boy.

Rundle and many high-ranking county employees then showed up for that infamous 2015 news conference.

“This is a prime example of how prosecutors and police can work together,” Rundle said from a lectern. She later added that Raksin "didn’t have any money on him," so Charles "shot and killed him."



Raksin's daughter painted Charles as a "vicious thug" who should have been "prosecuted to the fullest extent the law allows."

Miami-Dade County State Attorney's Office