The crime · January 27, 1998
The Murder of Albert Ward Inside an Illegal Gambling Joint
A careful reconstruction of the robbery and fatal shooting inside the illegal Harlem gambling joint Ward owned and operated.
The illegal gambling joint
On January 27, 1998, retired NYPD officer Albert Ward owned and operated an illegal numbers gambling joint on the second floor of 2335 Eighth Avenue in Harlem. Several people were inside taking bets, collecting winnings, socializing, using poker machines, and—in an adjoining room—conducting a drug transaction.
Albert Ward
Ward was 59 and had retired from the NYPD after a career as a police officer. He owned the numbers business, a bar, and neighborhood property, according to the National Registry of Exonerations’ account. Describing the location accurately as an illegal gambling joint is part of the case record; it does not diminish Ward’s life or the gravity of his killing.
The first visit and the betting slip
Around noon, a man later known in the case as “Tee” entered and asked to place a number. Staff initially refused because they did not know him. He said someone downstairs had sent him, that he lived near the St. Nicholas Houses, and that he usually played numbers on the east side. He wrote the name “Tee” and a number on the wrong slip. The employee discarded it, prepared a replacement, and the man left.
That discarded slip eventually became the most important physical exhibit in the reinvestigation. The point was not that the paper could identify every person involved in the robbery. Rather, witnesses said the returning gunman had handled it, and later testing excluded JJ from the biological material recovered from it. The full testing sequence is documented on the post-conviction page.
The robbery
About an hour later, “Tee” returned. After staff recognized him from the earlier visit, he was allowed inside. A second man arrived moments later. “Tee” put a gun to the doorman’s head and forced the door open. The second man entered, ordered everyone to the floor, demanded money, and used duct tape to restrain people.
The shooting
Ward attempted to protect the people and money inside the operation. He drew his revolver and struggled with the second robber. Ward’s gun discharged during the struggle. The second man shouted that Ward had a gun. “Tee” fired toward another witness and missed, then fired at Ward, killing him.
The flight
Both robbers fled immediately. Witnesses escaped through the stairs and toward the roof. One person ran downstairs to summon help and alerted a traffic officer nearby. Police arrived within minutes. The murder of Albert Ward was a grave crime; the wrongful conviction that followed did not solve it.
Two truths the record must hold
A victim-centered account does not require preserving an unsound conviction. Ward was killed during a violent robbery, his family lost him, and dismissing JJ’s indictment did not establish the identity of the person who killed Ward. At the same time, JJ lost more than twenty-three years to a conviction prosecutors ultimately agreed could not stand. Accuracy requires holding both harms in view without treating one as an answer to the other.
The New York Appellate Division’s 2016 opinion is the principal published judicial account of the robbery, trial, and earlier post-conviction record. The Associated Press’s 2024 exoneration report records the later DNA findings and dismissal.