Anthony Sims says that when he learned that his 1999 Brooklyn murder conviction was overturned last week, he wanted to “jump for joy”—but his broken ankle kept him from doing so. Since leaving prison (on parole) in late 2022, he has not been sitting still.

There was no dispute that neither Sims nor his then-buddy Julius Graves were present at the Bushwick Chinese food spot when counterman Li Run Chen was gunned down in May 1998. The question was who pulled the trigger. During the post-conviction hearing that spanned from 2021-2022, Sims’ legal team showed that Graves—who assured the jury that Sims was the killer—committed serial perjury, both during the 1999 trial and at the hearing. Sims, by contrast, consistently maintained his innocence. 

In March 2023, Brooklyn Judge Danny Chun—known for working closely with the prosecution—upheld Sims’ conviction. At the oral arguments heard by the 2^nd Appellate Division this past January, Judge Barry Warhit called attention to the fact that after the murder, Graves took the shotgun back to his apartment, wiped it clean of fingerprints, then hid it. “What are the chances that this was not Graves protecting himself?” Warhit wondered. (His grilling of the DA’s arguments in the case starts at 1:12:00 here.)  

As Sims’ lead attorney Ilann Maazel told the appellate panel, unlike Sims, Graves also had a motive, with his then-fiancé affirming that Li Run Chen had been flirting with her. Ever since May 1998, Sims has lived with the consequences of the mistake he made in accompanying Graves that fateful night in Bushwick. 

Sims, who was 23 at the time of the murder, would spend nearly 25 years behind bars. “I was angry when I went into prison,” he told the Indypendent recently. “But I started participating in Alternative to Violence Project (AVP) workshops at Green Haven and changed my direction.” By the time he left Woodbourne Correctional Facility, his last full stop before parole, Sims was an AVP workshop coordinator. 

In May 2025, Sims joined a panel discussion at Green Haven that commemorated the 50-year anniversary of AVP programming, which was launched by incarcerated men at that same facility and has since expanded worldwide.  Currently vice-chair of the organization’s New York branch, Sims plans to continue volunteering at AVP’s “Landing Strip” center (which provides reentry services) in Brownsville. 

Sims also volunteers with Justice Defenders, a London-based organization that promotes legal education within prisons. He and Bruce Bryan, the group’s U.S. Ambassador, spent time together at Green Haven. As highlighted by CNN’s Anderson Cooper last December, the Justice Defenders seek to expand their successful work inside prisons in Kenya and Uganda to the United States. 

After getting out on parole, Sims began working for the Ford Foundation, and remains there as a facilities associate, helping organize events. A slip on the January ice cracked his ankle but he is on the rebound. 

When he speaks at antiviolence workshops and events for at-risk youth, Sims warns of the dangers of peer pressure, invoking his own grievous mistake. He says that his favorite piece of advice is that “It’s better to be hated for who you are than loved for who you’re not.” As he learned in Scared Straight workshops while incarcerated, acting like a “gangster” is a path to ruin. Sims and his fellow reentering peers often drive home that message through the creative role-playing techniques that helped change their lives.  

After leaving prison, Sims has been living in New Jersey with his wife Keisha—and frequently visiting his two sons, Anthony, Jr. and Antoine. Toddlers when Sims went to prison, both now live in Las Vegas. 

The appeals process was a long and winding road for Sims and his legal team, which also included Jonathan Hiles and Tom Hoffman. If a judge upholds a conviction after a hearing, the first—and often most difficult—hurdle is that whichever appellate judge initially reviews the case must deem it worthy of a full review. 

In July 2023, Judge Francesca Connolly allowed Sims’ appeal to move forward. Judge Betsy Barros, a former bureau chief (of felony trials) at the Brooklyn DA’s office, then presided over the panel that reviewed the case. The DA’s office is expected to announce in early April whether it will seek review of Barros and company’s recent decision by the Court of Appeals. 

When Judge Danny Chun upheld Sims’ conviction in March 2023, the DA’s prickly longtime spokesman emailed me that ruling with the subject line: “For your reading pleasure.” In his victory message, the flack declared, “This case never struck me as particularly close.” 

Nearly three years later, Barros, Warhit and the two other judges on the appellate panel unanimously ruled that Sims’ conviction should not stand. Perhaps the case against Sims was not that close, after all. 

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