Man affected by crime lab error has died

A Hempstead man who was released from prison last fall after prosecutors found that the shuttered Nassau County crime lab had made a mistake when weighing the drugs in his case has died, the man's lawyer confirmed Friday.

Attorney Robert Schalk said Nwakanma Ochei, 27, was hit and killed by a subway train in Manhattan on Feb. 21. Schalk provided a Proof of Death certificate from the New York City Medical Examiner's office ruling his death an accident, though it did not say how he died. An NYPD spokesman said his office did not have a record of the incident.

Ochei had served more than a year and a half in prison on a felony drug charge when prosecutors sent the drugs in his case for retesting. The retest found misdemeanor weight cocaine, not the felony weight he was serving time for, prosecutors said.

He was released from prison Sept. 21 after prosecutors agreed that the missing drugs discovered during the re-examination at a private lab meant that there was a "legal impediment to his conviction," according to prosecutors and court papers.

He was recharged with a misdemeanor, though a judge dropped that charge Friday because he is dead.

The Nassau crime lab was closed in February 2011 after a national accreditation agency placed it on probation for a second time.