Defense attorneys for a New York man charged in the 2016 murder of a young woman claim cops took DNA samples from hundreds of black men in a “race-based dragnet” to identify the killer, The New York Times reports. The attorneys claim prosecutors never told them that the evidence had been acquired that way. The attorneys say during its investigation into the killing of 30-year-old Katrina Verano, the NYPD collected DNA of more than 360 black men who had previously been arrested in Queens and Brooklyn. That information comes from a letter the defense received from an anonymous source who claimed to be a police officer. The source also reportedly claimed that investigators were initially searching for “two jacked up white guys from Howard Beach.” Another source confirmed that police spent about two weeks searching for white suspects, until the commander of the Forensic Investigation Division received DNA information suggesting the suspect was black. After six months of searching, investigators identified 22-year-old Chanel Lewis as a match. Lewis confessed to the crime after 11 hours of interrogation—but he later said the confession was coerced. His first trial ended in a hung jury; his lawyers’ new discoveries could complicate his second trial.