A New York man who served 18 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit can move forward with his civil case which claims that the police officers who investigated him coerced witnesses into picking him out of a photo array, a federal judge ruled Monday.

Fernando Bermudez was convicted of killing a man outside a Greenwich Village nightclub in 1991 even though he had no relationship to the victim and ​had ​a number of alibi witnesses, his lawyer has said – and last year he won a $4.75 million settlement from the state over his wrongful imprisonment.

A three-judge panel from the US Court of Appeals ruled Monday that Bermudez could proceed with his second​ lawsuit alleging violations of his due process rights, overturning an earlier decision from a Manhattan federal court judge that dismissed his case.

The Appeals judges affirmed the Manhattan federal court judge’s decision to toss out the portion of Bermudez’s lawsuit that alleged malicious prosecution.

“Detective [Daniel]Massanova gave Lopez a photograph of Bermudez, told him that Bermudez was a drug dealer, and said to [Efraim] Lopez that if he did not identify Bermudez as the person who had killed Blount then Lopez would be charged as the shooter,” the judges wrote in their decision.

Bermudez’s case will now move forward in Manhattan federal court.

“We are disappointed with this decision,” a city Law Department spokesman said.