Troy

A man facing a new trial on a charge of attempted murder was released to house arrest Monday while prosecutors appeal a judge's ruling that threw out the bulk of their evidence used at the first trial.

Paul Walker, 27, appeared Monday before Rensselaer County Judge Andrew Ceresia and after serving nearly five years in prison or jail, was released on $2,500 bail and put on house arrest with electronic monitoring, court officials said.

Walker's retrial had been set to start Monday in the 2009 shooting of a Hoosick Street pizza store manager in a robbery.

Last week, Ceresia ruled that the prosecution's crucial evidence, including DNA that allegedly put Walker at the scene, was inadmissible. In an appearance on Thursday before Ceresia, Assistant District Attorney Shane Hug said his office will appeal the judge's ruling to the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court. Hug also said his office is not ready for trial and asked for an adjournment.

Walker was found guilty of attempted murder in 2011 and sentenced to 25 years in prison for the Domino's Pizza shooting, which permanently injured the manager, and the robbery.

The conviction relied on evidence connected to a cellphone allegedly belonging to Walker and an unrelated earlier robbery of a Queens bodega.

In 2013, an appellate court reversed his conviction over improperly obtained DNA evidence and ordered a new trial.

At a pretrial hearing, Walker's attorney, William Roberts, argued that the cellphone and information gleaned from it were not legally admissible.

Ceresia, in a written decision last week, agreed with Roberts, setting up the option to ask for bail for Walker.

As a result of the decision, prosecutors may not use any information regarding the cellphone.

The case unraveled over conflicting testimony from a New York Police Department detective and the Queens bodega clerk. They told very different stories about who obtained information from the cellphone, and Ceresia said he did not believe the detective's version.

bgardinier@timesunion.com • 518-454-5696 • @BobGardinier