Former NYPD Sgt. Erik Duran will be released from prison as he fights his manslaughter conviction for fatally chucking a picnic cooler at a fleeing drug suspect.
Duran, who has been behind bars since Bronx Judge Guy Mitchell sentenced him to at least three years in prison on April 9, was granted $300,000 bail by a state appeals court in a ruling on Friday.
“I am very pleased to announce that the SBA’s team of attorneys have secured bail for Erik Duran and he will be released from prison and will remain free throughout his appeal,” Sergeants Benevolent Association president Vincent Vallelong said in a statement.
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“This a major win for Erik and his family and for law enforcement officers around the country!”
Duran, 38, a married father of three, was found guilty of manslaughter by Mitchell following a non-jury trial in February. The judge then hit him with a prison term of three to nine years, calling it a “general deterrent” to other police officers — and stoking a firestorm among law enforcement supporters.
The Bronx native, who was fired by the NYPD upon his conviction, threw a full Igloo cooler at 30-year-old Eric Duprey as he tried to flee arrest on a moped during an undercover drug sting in August 2023.
Duprey was killed after crashing the motorbike.
It’s unclear how quickly Duran could be freed from prison, but union officials and his lawyers were working to get him out as soon as Friday.
He also needs to give up his passport along with ponying up the bail in cash or bond, according to the decision from Judge Saliann Scarpulla, of New York’s First Judicial Department, Appellate Division.
Duran has been locked up at Elmira Correctional Facility since Monday, according to jail records, after he spent a short stint in a Rikers Island jail cell following Mitchell’s controversial sentencing decision.
The former cop claimed during his trial that he threw the cooler at Duprey because other officers’ lives were in danger.
But Mitchell determined that Duran only wanted to take Duprey into custody during the chaotic scene on Aug. 23, 2023, and that he should not have used lethal force.
The sergeants’ union has been working with the National Police Defense Foundation to raise money for his appeal.
