After fighting his wrongful conviction for nearly 22 years, Sonny Bharadia was finally fully exonerated on May 16, 2025!
In the face of DNA evidence proving Sonny’s innocence, a confirmed alibi, unreliable eyewitness identification, and incentivized false testimony, the State previously acknowledged that the case against Sonny is “not viable” and chose to fully dismiss all charges against him.
The path to Sonny’s exoneration was a long one. In 2023, Georgia Innocence Project and co-counsel, including former Georgia Innocence Project Staff Attorney Olivia Vigiletti, John Fleming and Anna Halsey of Eversheds Sutherland, LLP, and Holly Pierson of Pierson Law, LLC, fought to overturn Sonny’s wrongful conviction through a contested habeas corpus hearing.
Sonny’s conviction was thrown out in April 2024 and Noah Pines of Ross & Pines, LLC, joined the legal team for a potential re-trial while the State decided whether to continue prosecuting Sonny for a crime he clearly did not commit.
On May 16, 2025, that possibility was put to rest and, instead, Sonny was finally exonerated!
Pictured above: GIP Senior Attorney Christina Cribbs, former GIP Staff Attorney Olivia Vigiletti (co-counsel), Sonny Bharadia, and Noah Pines of Ross & Pines (co-counsel).
The Crime
In 2001, a woman walked in on a man who was in the process of burglarizing her home in Thunderbolt, Georgia. The man sexually assaulted the woman at knife-point and then fled with some of her belongings. Before the woman was assaulted, she noticed that the man was wearing blue and white batting gloves.
Sonny Bharadia was in Lithonia, Georgia, over 250 miles away from Thunderbolt, working on a friend’s car during the time the victim was attacked.
Just a few days after the assault occurred, Sonny called police to report that Sterling Flint, an acquaintance of Sonny’s, had stolen Sonny’s car and was also in possession of a stolen motorcycle. In response, Sterling Flint threatened to kill Sonny, which Sonny also reported to the police.
When police went to investigate Sterling, they discovered the sexual assault victim’s stolen property along with a pair of blue and white batting gloves. When the victim was shown a photo lineup, she identified Sterling Flint as her possible attacker.
When police directly connected Sterling to the sexual assault, Sterling tried to deny his involvement by claiming that the stolen items found among his personal possessions actually belonged to Sonny Bharadia. After Sterling attempted to shift the blame to Sonny, police then gave the victim a second photo lineup that did not include Sterling and, this time, she identified Sonny Bharadia as her possible attacker. Sterling, a Black man, and Sonny, an Indian man, look nothing alike.
While we have never seen this photo array, Sonny’s former attorney remembers laughing with the former police chief about how suggestive the array was, claiming that Sonny’s picture “jumps off the page at you.” (The state never disclosed either of these photo arrays to Sonny’s attorney, which meant he could not use the fact that the victim also identified Sterling Flint in a photo array in Sonny’s favor at trial.)
The DA charged both Sonny and Sterling in this crime. Sterling pleaded guilty to receiving the victim’s stolen property and, in exchange for not being prosecuted for a sex crime, testified against Sonny Bharadia. No physical evidence tied Sonny to the crime. Sterling’s incentivized testimony, along with the victim’s revised eyewitness identification, were the only evidence supporting the prosecution’s case against Sonny.
On June 27th, 2003, Sonny Bharadia was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The Fight for Freedom
At the time of trial, the batting gloves worn by the attacker were not tested for DNA evidence because the technology to do so did not yet exist. However, several years later, when Georgia Innocence Project took on Sonny’s case, DNA testing technology had advanced to the point that “touch” DNA testing could be performed on the gloves. Using DNA from skin cells left on the gloves, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation was able to extract a DNA profile and compare it with a sample obtained from Sonny. The DNA didn’t match. It did, however, match someone else: Sterling Flint.
One of the batting gloves worn by the perpetrator. Testing implicated an alternative suspect, Sterling Flint.
Georgia Innocence Project brought this evidence to the attention of the district attorney, but they declined to take action.
The case was litigated all the way up to the Georgia Supreme Court, which ultimately decided against Sonny–partially on the grounds that the gloves could have been tested at the time of Sonny’s trial, even though the technology did not yet exist in 2003.
Georgia Innocence Project and pro bono counsel filed an amended habeas corpus petition in December 2022. An evidentiary hearing was held before Gwinnett County Judge Laura Tate on June 20, 2023.
Almost 10 months later, on April 9, 2024, Judge Tate filed an order granting habeas relief. Judge Tate ruled that Sonny’s constitutional rights were violated and overturned his conviction.
This decision reversed Sonny’s conviction, a result he had been fighting for over the course of more than two decades.
Sonny Bharadia was represented in the habeas proceedings that led to this decision by Georgia Innocence Project Senior Attorney Christina Cribbs and pro bono counsel, including: former Georgia Innocence Project Staff Attorney Olivia Vigiletti, John Fleming and Anna Halsey of Eversheds Sutherland, LLP, and Holly Pierson of Pierson Law LLC.
You can view Sonny’s testimony here, including his experience of what it is like to be wrongfully incarcerated.
Sonny’s Exoneration
On Friday, May 16, 2025, Sonny Bharadia appeared in court to close the last chapter in his wrongful conviction case, which began over two decades ago. The State announced at a prior hearing that the case against Sonny was “not viable” and that it would be fulling dismissing the case, resulting in Sonny’s hard-fought exoneration.
Sonny was wrongfully convicted in 2003 for a burglary and sexual assault which took place just outside of Savannah, GA. Although DNA evidence of Sonny’s innocence has existed for over 20 years, legal barriers kept him incarcerated until 2024, when his habeas corpus petition was granted and his conviction was overturned. After that, Sonny was released on bond while the Chatham County District Attorney’s Office considered a retrial. On Friday, May 16, 2025, all charges against Sonny were officially dismissed.
“I’m thankful and grateful. I’ve waited years for this day. I’ve been claiming my innocence since day one.” – Sonny Bharadia
Georgia Innocence Project represented Sonny along with co-counsel former Georgia Innocence Project Staff Attorney Olivia Vigiletti, John Fleming and Anna Halsey of Eversheds Sutherland, LLP, Holly Pierson of Pierson Law LLC, and Noah Pines of Ross & Pines, LLC.
In addition to co-counsel, Georgia Innocence Project is also grateful to the interns and volunteers who worked on Sonny’s case over the years. We are elated to welcome Sonny into Georgia’s community of innocent freed and exonerated people.
To support Sonny’s private GoFundMe, click here.
To learn more about Sonny’s case, visit Sonny’s Freedom page.