A convicted killer from New Orleans was released from prison to house arrest for eight days before officials realized this week that he had been wrongly allowed to go free despite a 28-year prison sentence. The mothers of the two men Ahmad Rainey killed think the only reason he is back behind bars is that they alerted the criminal justice system to its mistake.
Rainey was in custody at the Orleans Justice Center after he was rearrested on Tuesday. But the episode left the victims' families in disbelief and prompted Judge Nandi Campbell of Orleans Parish Criminal District Court to make a public apology.
Ahmad Rainey was sentenced to 28 years in prison for manslaughter, in connection with the fatal 2015 shooting of Vernon Lewis. (Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office)
“It was just like a kick in the face,” said Sonita Lewis, whose son, Vernon, was killed by Rainey in 2015. “How did it happen?”
The chain of events that led to Rainey’s freedom appears to have begun with the convoluted verdict that jurors handed down at the end of his 2018 trial.
Prosecutors said Rainey, now 38, shot and killed Vernon Lewis and Daniel Millon, both 24, because they parked their motorcycles in a breezeway outside Rainey’s apartment in the Hidden Lakes complex on Dec. 28, 2015.
Rainey insisted that Millon had a pistol. He said he opened fire with an AR-15 rifle only after Millon began to move toward him. Police didn’t recover any weapons from the scene.
Jurors partially credited Rainey’s story. They acquitted him in the shooting of Millon, but unanimously convicted him of manslaughter for shooting Lewis.
Vernon Lewis was shot to death in New Orleans in 2015.
They also voted 10-2 to convict Rainey of obstruction of justice for tossing away the rifle before he turned himself in to the police. At the time, Louisiana was one of two states to allow split jury convictions.
Rainey was sentenced to 28 years in prison for manslaughter and 20 years for obstruction of justice.
His obstruction conviction was vacated last year as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court’s April 2020 decision invalidating non-unanimous jury verdicts. Nevertheless, his unanimous manslaughter conviction should have kept him behind bars for years to come.
Still, at an April 21 court hearing, Campbell set Rainey’s bail at $70,000 on the manslaughter count and $5,000 on the obstruction count. She also required him to wear an ankle monitor and stay home.
Campbell said no objection was raised at the hearing to the bail being set on the manslaughter count, and online court records don't record an objection from the district attorney's office.
Rainey was released on bail from the Orleans Justice Center on May 3. On Tuesday, court records show, Campbell was notified that Rainey’s release on the manslaughter count was in error. He was back in custody within two hours, thanks to the monitoring conditions of his bail, Campbell said.
The judge said Rainey’s mistaken release prompted a full-scale review of all cases in her court involving non-unanimous jury convictions, and that no other defendants were freed under similar circumstances.
Daniel Millon, pictured with his daughter, and Vernon Lewis were shot to death Dec. 28, 2015, at a New Orleans East apartment complex.
“I just want to apologize to the victims' family for this mishap,” Campbell said Wednesday. “I can’t speak as to why it wasn’t caught by the state or the defense, but I am definitely taking responsibility for my part.”
District Attorney Jason Williams' office said Rainey's case isn't part of a separate "Jim Crow juries" project addressing final non-unanimous convictions.
"The DA’s office is not the entity responsible for setting bail," First Assistant District Attorney Bob White said. "The extent of our involvement in this matter to date included working closely with the court and other system actors to make sure that the defendant was apprehended as soon as we learned of this release. It was in fact the DA’s office that brought this matter to the court’s attention."
Rainey's defense attorney, Frank DeSalvo, didn't return a request for comment.
Sonita Lewis said she thinks the court learned of the error only because she reached out to Williams’ office on Tuesday. She and Millon’s mother said they had discovered Rainey was a free man earlier that day, when someone sent them a screenshot of a social media post he made after his release.
He cites effort to wipe away stains of Jim Crow era
“Dumb criminals do dumb things,” Lewis said. “It was insulting, really, that you were supposed to be in jail but you got out. And for you to go and boast about it, very insulting, and it was hurtful.”
Campbell described Rainey’s release as a mistake. Lewis said she still wants to know more about why her son's killer was freed and why no one told her.
“My son’s life was taken away at 24 years old,” she said. “He didn’t get to have kids. He never married. He had his whole life ahead of him. Over a parking space.”
