I'm Dean Mustaphalli. I served time in a New York State prison, won my parole appeal, and came home in December 2023. Because of the injustice I witnessed, I created Case Analytica to report on New York's Parole Board.

I spent years in finance on Wall Street and then ran my own fund. That career ended with a felony conviction. While inside, I created a transition program, met with men in the law library and helped them prepare for Parole Board hearings: completed programs, release plan timelines, and appeals of parole denials. I watched men do every program the state asked of them, earn the certificate that proves it, and yet return to their cells with a denial. I still see their disenfranchised faces.

Then it was my turn for an interview. As in so many hearings I witnessed, the commissioner focused on my crime, not the work completed since. Everything I had worked for felt like it was gone in one conversation. I appealed, won and came home. A lot of the men I sat with in that library did not.

In 2026, I founded Case Analytica to shine a light on this injustice by the Parole Board.

To provide backstory, according to the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, between October 2025 and March 2026 there were 402 incidents when the Parole Board denied individuals holding an Earned Eligibility Certificate their release. That is 402 times someone did everything the state asked of them, yet remained incarcerated and a family was kept waiting.

New York law says a person who holds that certificate "shall be granted parole release" at the end of their minimum term. The Board can say no only if it finds two things: a reasonable probability that the person will not "live and remain at liberty without violating the law," and that release "is not compatible with the welfare of society." It has to find both.

The Board's own Appeals Unit caught it failing before. In a 2019 case it found "the Board failed to consider the fact that Appellant was issued an Earned Eligibility Certificate."

We don't know how many of those 402 denials followed the law. Nobody does, because no one has compared the Board's decisions side by side with what the law requires. That is what keeps me up at night and why I launched Case Analytica.

A man in a cell has an appeal form, a few hours in the law library, and a Board that answers to no one he can reach for assistance. He can't make the Board show its work, but together, we can.

With your tax-deductible gift, Case Analytica will:

• Using the state's own Appeals Unit and Fordham Law School's parole appeals archive, we will find the decisions and every published parole appeal that involves an Earned Eligibility Certificate.
• Check each decision against the law. Did the Board state both findings in its report as the law requires (a reasonable probability the person would break the law if released, and that release is not compatible with the welfare of society), or not?
• Share what we find with the Board for its response.
• Hear from the men denied parole and their families.
• Publish all of it for free, whatever the outcome.

When our appeal research is complete, the individuals and families waiting for a decision can read how the Board reached its decision, in its own words, as can their lawyers and the Board itself. That is how appeal denial, after all release criteria have been met, starts to change. The record goes out in the open, in the public space, where no one can look away.

Case Analytica can only do this with your help. Partner with us. Please give what you can today, and send this to one person who would want to know about our mission.

A one-time gift helps start the work. A monthly gift keeps it going, because this reporting is always running: reading each decision, talking with families, and posting every finding once it's checked and confirmed. Your gift is tax-deductible.

For the men still waiting in that library, thank you.

Case Analytica is fiscally sponsored by the Alternative Newsweekly Foundation, EIN 30-0100369. All donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.

Sources
402 denials: New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS), Earned Eligibility Program Summary, October 2025 through March 2026, Table 5. https://doccs.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2026/06/eep-semiannual-report-october-2025-through-march-2026-final.pdf
Statute quotes: New York Correction Law 805, https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/COR/805
Appeals Unit finding: DOCCS Appeals Unit, Salvador Fernandez (April 2019 denial), https://doccs.ny.gov/salvador-fernandez-din-14a1126-0
Decisions archive: Fordham Law School, parole appeals decisions, https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/aad/