In a near-empty Orleans Parish courtroom, prosecutors with District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro's office agreed Wednesday to scrap the 66-year prison sentence of a New Orleans man who was convicted in the knifepoint robbery of an Esplanade Avenue pharmacy in 2001, amid new evidence that police and prosecutors got the wrong man.

There was no rejoicing from Donald Degruy or his attorneys with the Innocence Project New Orleans, however, as Degruy grudgingly agreed to plead guilty to the same crime, armed robbery, in exchange for his freedom. Degruy, 38, accepted an 18-year sentence that will see him released in September.

IPNO Director Emily Maw expressed outrage at Cannizzaro's refusal to endorse Degruy's innocence and set him free following a joint investigation by her group and the District Attorney's Office.

The investigation into Degruy's case, Maw said, was the sole product of a city-funded partnership that Cannizzaro's office and IPNO launched in 2014 to try to root out bad convictions from the past.

Billed as a first of its kind in the nation, the Conviction Integrity and Accuracy Project was aborted after just a year. Amid palpable friction between the two sides, the City Council declined to renew its funding.

*******************Maw said the evidence is clear that Levar King, another convicted armed robber who bears a remarkable resemblance to Degruy, robbed the Esplanade Pharmacy with another man on the morning of May 8, 2001.

King has admitted to the robbery. He also provided investigators with corroborating evidence to support his confession, after Criminal District Court Judge Karen Herman in 2012 found contradictions in his claims and denied an earlier bid by Degruy for a new trial.

Photographs of the two men from around the time of the robbery, showing what Degruy's attorneys described as "an uncanny resemblance" between them, lent support to Degruy's claim that a pharmacy clerk mistakenly fingered him as the culprit.

"It is a sad day for justice in New Orleans when our district attorney insists an innocent black man plead guilty in order to be permitted to leave the prison plantation," Maw said.

"And on the facts of this case, it is an illogical and unjust result. We are glad Mr. Degruy will be reunited with his children but deeply disappointed that Mr. Cannizzaro cannot do better for the poor and vulnerable of our city. New Orleans needs its powerful leaders to reflect our aspirations, not the more oppressive times in our history."

The agreement Wednesday came as Innocence Project attorneys pressed for a new hearing for Degruy, who was convicted in 2002 after his first trial ended with a hung jury.

Prosecutors claimed Degruy held up the pharmacy clerk in the front of the store with a butcher knife while an unidentified partner robbed pharmacist Gwendolyn Charles in the back with a gun wrapped in a bandana.

Detectives had sent a video of the robbery to local media, and an anonymous man called police saying he recognized Degruy, then 23. The pharmacy clerk then identified him in a photo lineup.

Degruy testified that he wasn't involved in the robbery, that he'd been with family and friends that morning and had never set foot inside the pharmacy. Two other witnesses supported his alibi.

Christopher Bowman, a spokesman for Cannizzaro's office, stood by the guilty plea that Maw said was foisted upon Degruy.

"We do not believe in the defendant's innocence," Bowman said. "We believe that had this gone through a second post-conviction hearing, we would ultimately have prevailed, but we acknowledge there were some issues that made it a close call. In light of the fact he's admitted he's guilty and has already served a significant period of time in jail, the district attorney felt that this was a good outcome."

Degruy claimed he never knew King until running into him in the fields of Angola State Penitentiary, where King is doing just under 50 years for another armed robbery committed eight days before the pharmacy heist.

King's later confession to the pharmacy robbery, after the statute of limitations had run out, wasn't enough for Herman four years ago.

Since then, however, King has admitted to a string of similar armed robberies within the same two-week period, one of which took place while Degruy was behind bars in Jefferson Parish on a different arrest.

Degruy was sentenced in 2002 as a three-time offender, court records show.

Other evidence ties King to a red Ford Taurus that he used in other robberies. Victims of the Esplanade Pharmacy robbery said a red compact car was used in the crime.

The investigation turned up several other similarities between the the pharmacy robbery and the other armed robberies which King admitted committing, including witnesses' descriptions of the perpetrators.