- Artist’s Sentencing for Price Tag Swap ‘Mortally Dangerous,’ Member of Putin’s Rights Council Says The Moscow Times
- Member of Russian Human Rights Council says staying in penal colony ‘life-threatening’ for anti-war protester Sasha Skochilenko Meduza
- Judge Who Convicted Russian Anti-War Protester Skochilenko Tabbed For Promotion Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
- Russian doctors call for release of imprisoned artist who protested Ukraine war Yahoo News
- Judge who convicted Russian anti-war protester Sasha Skochilenko recommended for promotion Meduza
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Tag Archives: sentencing
Watch: Ex-Scientologist Leah Remini speaks out after Danny Masterson sentencing – CNN
- Watch: Ex-Scientologist Leah Remini speaks out after Danny Masterson sentencing CNN
- Danny Masterson interview with Conan O’Brien resurfaces after rape sentencing: ‘You’ll be caught’ Fox News
- Danny Masterson’s Wife Says He Planted 6,000 Vines, Learned the Wine Business After Losing Hollywood Career Yahoo Entertainment
- That ‘70s Show’ actor Danny Masterson sentenced to 30 years to life in prison NBC News
- Leah Remini Believes Danny Masterson Conviction Is a Compelling ‘Indictment Against Scientology’ Amid Her Own Legal Battle SheKnows
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Iranian couple handed prison sentence for dancing in the streets
CNN
—
An Iranian couple, both social media influencers, have been given lengthy prison sentences after a video emerged of them dancing in a main square in the capital Tehran.
In a video shared widely on social media, Astiyazh Haghighi, 21, is seen dancing without a headscarf with her fiancé Amir Mohammad Ahmadi, 22, in Azadi Square. The couple posted the video themselves.
Each was charged with “spreading corruption and vice,” and “assembly and collusion with the intention of disrupting national security,” receiving sentences of ten and a half years, according to activist group Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA).
However Mizan, a news agency affiliated with Iran’s judiciary, said each individual was sentenced to 5-year prison term on the charges of “assembly and collusion with the intention of disrupting national security.”
The two are accused of encouraging people to assemble and inviting them to riot in an Instagram post made on October 26, Mizan Online also said.
Judge Abolqasem Salavati presided over their case and meted out the sentences, along with a ban on posting videos on social media for two years and a ban on leaving the country for two years, according to HRANA.
Security forces first raided the couple’s home in the early morning hours of October 30, a source told CNN, and took them to interrogation and then later transferred them to prison.
Haghighi was initially sent to Evin prison’s Ward 209 but then transferred to Qarchak women’s prison where she is currently detained, HRANA reports. Both Haghighi and her partner are being denied access to a lawyer, it added.
Haghighi and Ahmadi each has close to a million followers on Instagram and also have separate YouTube channels with a total of more than half a million followers.
This comes after the country has been roiled in nationwide protests over the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young woman accused of flouting the country’s compulsory hijab laws. Iran has cracked down by executing protesters, accused of killing security forces, which critics say were the result of hasty sham trials.
Their lengthy sentences have been compared by critics to that of Sajjad Heydari, an Iranian man who notoriously beheaded his wife last year. Heydari, who killed his 17-year-old wife in February 2022, was sentenced to just eight years and two months in prison, according to the country’s semi-official Khabar Online website.
Jan. 6 rioter who assaulted Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick sentenced to over 6 years in jail
CNN
—
A man who assaulted United States Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick with pepper spray on January 6, 2021, was sentenced on Friday to 80 months behind bars.
Julian Khater pleaded guilty in September to two counts of assaulting, resisting or impeding officers with a dangerous weapon. His co-defendant, George Tanios, pleaded guilty last summer to disorderly conduct and entering and remaining in a restricted building. Khater was also ordered to pay a $10,000 fine and $2,000 in restitution.
Tanios was sentenced to time served and one year of supervised release. He previously spent more than five months behind bars.
The day after the attack, Sicknick died after suffering several strokes. Washington, DC’s chief medical examiner, Francisco Diaz, determined that the officer died of natural causes and told The Washington Post that the riot and “all that transpired played a role in his condition.”
Sicknick’s family and partner were present for the sentencing and law enforcement officers dressed in uniform filled the courtroom.
According to the plea agreements, Tanios bought two cans of bear spray in preparation for his trip with Khater to Washington on January 6. During the Capitol attack, when the two men arrived near a line of police officers by the steps of the Capitol, Khater said to Tanios, “Give me that bear s**t,” according to the plea.
Khater took a white can of bear spray from Tanios’s backpack, walked up to the line of officers and, as rioters started pulling on the bike rack barrier separating them and the police, Khater sprayed multiple officers – including Sicknick – who had to retreat from the line.
One of those officers, Caroline Edwards, gave a witness impact statement before DC District Judge Thomas Hogan during the sentencing hearing.
“I felt like the absolute worst kind of officer, someone who didn’t help – couldn’t help – their friend,” she said of not being able to help Sicknick after being sprayed herself seconds later by Khater. “Sometimes when I close my eyes I can still see his face, white as a sheet.”
Hogan called Khater’s actions that day “inexcusable,” adding that “three officers (who) were doing their duty … are suddenly sprayed directly in the face.”
“I’m not going to give a lecture on the riot,” Hogan said, adding that “every time you see the video you’re shocked over again” and that “something has come out of this country that is very, very serious.”
After recovering from the bear spray attack, Sicknick continued to help protect the Capitol that day, according to court documents, remaining on duty until late into the evening.
“Just before approximately 10:00 p.m., Officer Sicknick began slurring his speech while talking to fellow officers,” court documents state. “He slumped backwards and lost consciousness, and emergency medical technicians were summoned for assistance. He was transported to the George Washington University Hospital where he remained on life support for nearly 24 hours and was pronounced dead at 8:51 p.m. the following day.”
Khater’s defense attorney said that Hogan should not sentence his client for the death of Sicknick, which the attorney noted was determined to be of natural causes. The judge agreed, noting he “can’t sentence Mr. Khater (for) causing officer Sicknick’s death.”
Calling his client “sheepish” and “sweet and gentle,” Khater’s attorney said his actions that day amounted to seconds of “emotionally charged conduct” from a man who suffered from anxiety.
In his statement to the judge, Khater began by highlighting how long he had already served behind bars and how it had “taken a huge toll” on him. “I wish I could take it all back,” he said. “It’s not who I am.”
Hogan pressed Khater on why he did not expressly apologize to the officers in the courtroom and Sicknick’s family. “Somewhere along the lines we lost the sense of responsibility,” the judge said.
“It’s the elephant in the room,” Khater said, adding that “there’s a civil thing going on” – in reference to a civil lawsuit from Sicknick’s estate – and that his lawyer had warned him about what to say in court Friday.
“You should be afraid,” Hogan said of the lawsuit.
Sicknick’s partner, Sandra Garza, had asked the judge to impose the maximum sentence for both men.
“I realize it will not bring back Brian, nor give him peace in his last moments on earth, but it will give some sense of justice in my universe,” Garza wrote to the judge.
“The only thing that surpasses my anger is my sadness,” Sicknick’s brother, Kenneth, wrote in his statement to the judge. “Sadness that the only time I can communicate with Brian is to speak into the nothingness and hope that he is listening.”
Kenneth continued, “Brian was never one for the spotlight. He preferred to go about his business, not bringing attention to himself. My family and I quietly smile at each other when we attend an event honoring and remembering Brian and the weather turns bad. We know it’s Brian telling us that it is OK, he is OK, please don’t make a big deal about me, take care of the others that need it. That’s what he would have done.”
This story has been updated with additional details.
NJ woman Katelyn McClure sentenced to 3 years for role in $400k GoFundMe scam
A New Jersey woman was sentenced to three years in state prison on Friday for her role in a $400,000 GoFundMe scam in which she and her then-boyfriend lied about helping a homeless veteran in Philadelphia.
Katelyn McClure, 32, was not present at her sentencing in Burlington County as she is already serving her one-year federal term in the case in a Connecticut prison, according to the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office.
Her state sentence will run concurrently and the former New Jersey Department of Transportation worker will be permanently barred from ever working as a public employee in the state.
In 2017, McClure and her then-boyfriend, Mark D’Amico, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud after they invented a heartwarming but bogus story claiming that a homeless vet, Johnny Bobbitt Jr., had just spent his last $20 to help McClure fill up her gas tank while she was stranded on I-95 in Philadelphia.
The pair launched a GoFundMe campaign titled “Paying it Forward,” which donors believed was to get Bobbitt off the streets and into a home.
The story quickly gained traction as McClure and D’Amico did interviews with local and national media outlets. In less than one month, they had defrauded more than 14,000 donors out of $400,000.
The funds were transferred from GoFundMe to the couple’s personal accounts. The two blew most of the money over the next three months on personal expenses.
The couple told Bobbitt about the fake tale they’d spun and the money — which he had previously been unaware of. In December 2017, officials say D’Amico opened a bank account for Bobbitt and the two deposited $25,000 into the account.
D’Amico, 43, pleaded guilty in December 2019 and was sentenced to five years in state prison, a term also running concurrently with an earlier federal term. He and McClure have both been ordered to fully reimburse GoFundMe.
Bobbitt was sentenced to probationary federal and state terms.
With Post Wires
Missouri carries out first known execution of an openly transgender person for 2003 murder
CNN
—
Missouri carried out the first known US execution of an openly transgender person Tuesday when Amber McLaughlin, who was convicted of a 2003 murder and unsuccessfully sought clemency from the governor, was put to death by lethal injection.
“McLaughlin was pronounced dead at 6:51 p.m.,” the Missouri Department of Corrections said in a written statement. A spokesperson did not say if McLaughlin had a final statement.
McLaughlin’s execution – the first in the US this year – is unusual: Executions of women in the United States are already rare. Prior to McLaughlin’s execution, just 17 had been put to death since 1976, when the US Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty after a brief suspension, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The non-profit organization confirmed McLaughlin is the first openly transgender person to be executed in the United States.
McLaughlin, 49, and her attorneys had petitioned Republican Gov. Mike Parson for clemency, asking him to commute her death sentence. Aside from the fact a jury could not agree on the death penalty, they say, McLaughlin has shown genuine remorse and has struggled with an intellectual disability, mental health issues and a history of childhood trauma.
But in a statement Tuesday, Parson’s office announced the execution would move forward as planned. The family and loved ones of her victim, Beverly Guenther, “deserve peace,” the statement said.
“The State of Missouri will carry out McLaughlin’s sentence according to the Court’s order,” Parson said, “and deliver justice.”
McLaughlin – listed in court documents as Scott McLaughlin – had not initiated a legal name change or transition and as a death-sentenced person, was kept at Potosi Correctional Center near St. Louis, which housed male inmates, McLaughlin’s federal public defender Larry Komp and the governor’s office have said.
McLaughlin was sentenced to death for Guenther’s November 2003 murder, according to court records.
The two were previously in a relationship, but they had separated by the time of the killing and Guenther had received an order of protection against McLaughlin after she was arrested for burglarizing Guenther’s home.
Several weeks later, while the order was in effect, McLaughlin waited for Guenther outside the victim’s workplace, court records say. McLaughlin repeatedly stabbed and raped Guenther, prosecutors argued at trial, pointing in part to blood spatters in the parking lot and in Guenther’s truck.
A jury convicted McLaughlin of first-degree murder, forcible rape and armed criminal action, court records show.
But when it came to a sentence, the jury was deadlocked.
Most US states with the death penalty require a jury to unanimously vote to recommend or impose the death penalty, but Missouri does not. According to state law, in cases where a jury is unable to agree on the death penalty, the judge decides between life imprisonment without parole or death. McLaughlin’s trial judge imposed the death penalty.
If Parson were to grant clemency, McLaughlin’s attorneys argued, he would not have subverted the will of the jury, since the jury could not agree on a capital sentence.
That, however, was just one of several grounds on which McLaughlin’s attorneys said Parson should grant her clemency, according to the petition submitted to the governor.
In addition to the issue of her deadlocked jury, McLaughlin’s attorneys pointed to her struggles with mental health, as well as a history of childhood trauma. McLaughlin has been “consistently diagnosed with borderline intellectual disability,” and “universally diagnosed with brain damage as well as fetal alcohol syndrome,” the petition said.
McLaughlin was “abandoned” by her mother and placed into the foster care system, and in one placement, had “feces thrust into her face,” according to the petition.
She later suffered more abuse and trauma, including being tased by her adoptive father, the petition said, and battled depression that led to “multiple suicide attempts.”
At trial, McLaughlin’s jury did not hear expert testimony about her mental state at the time of Guenther’s murder, the petition said. That testimony, her attorneys said, could have tipped the scales toward a life sentence by supporting the mitigating factors cited by the defense and rebutting the prosecution’s claim McLaughlin acted with depravity of mind – that her actions were particularly brutal or “wantonly vile” – the only aggravating factor the jury found.
A federal judge in 2016 vacated McLaughlin’s death sentence due to ineffective counsel, court records show, citing her trial attorneys’ failure to present that expert testimony. That ruling, however, was later overturned by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.
McLaughlin’s execution “would highlight all the flaws of the justice system and would be a great injustice on a number of levels,” Komp, her attorney, told CNN previously.
“It would continue the systemic failures that existed throughout Amber’s life where no interventions occurred to stop and intercede to protect her as a child and teen,” Komp said. “All that could go wrong did go wrong for her.”
Convicted ringleader in Michigan governor kidnapping plot faces sentencing
By Steve Gorman
(Reuters) – The convicted leader of a foiled plot by members of right-wing militia groups to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer faces a possible life term in prison when he is sentenced on Tuesday in U.S. District Court.
Adam Fox was found guilty in August by a federal court jury in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on one count each of conspiring to abduct Whitmer and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction in a scheme prosecutors said was intended to spark a “second American revolution.”
Co-defendant Barry Croft Jr., another member of the Three Percenters militia group, was convicted of the same charges at the same trial and was scheduled for sentencing on Wednesday.
Both men face a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Prosecutors described Fox as the mastermind behind a plot to break into Whitmer’s vacation home, kidnap her at gunpoint, and take her to stand “trial” on bogus treason charges and face execution.
Prosecutors said the plot, precipitated by the group’s opposition to public health measures Whitmer imposed during the early days of the COVID pandemic, was aimed at pushing the country into armed conflict as a contentious presidential race approached in November 2020.
The weapon of mass destruction involved was a bomb that prosecutors said the conspirators planned to detonate to hinder law enforcement’s response to the abduction.
Whitmer, a Democrat and co-chairman of Joe Biden’s White House campaign that year, had clashed publicly with then-President Donald Trump over her COVID policies.
She accused Trump of fomenting political extremism by repeatedly directing heated rhetoric on the issue, including a campaign rally in Michigan where his criticism of Whitmer drew chants of “lock her up” from the crowd.
Fox and Croft were among 13 men arrested in October 2020 on state or federal crimes in the kidnapping conspiracy.
Two others put on trial with them in federal court were found not guilty in April 2022. The same jury failed to reach a verdict for Fox and Croft, resulting in a mistrial for them.
Two other men who pleaded guilty to kidnapping conspiracy charges testified for the prosecution at the first federal trial and during the retrial of Fox and Croft about four months later.
The two cooperating witnesses, Ty Garbin and Kaleb Franks, were sentenced to 2 1/2 years and four years in prison, respectively.
Three other men tried together in state court and convicted in October 2022 of playing supporting roles in the plot as members of the Wolverine Watchmen militia were sentenced last month to minimum sentences of 10, 12 and 7 years in prison, respectively.
Depending on parole factors, two of the men, Joseph Morrison and his father-in-law, Pete Musico, could each serve terms of up to 42 years, while the third, Paul Bellar, faces as much as 22 years behind bars.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles. Editing by Gerry Doyle)
Harvey Weinstein: Los Angeles jury deadlocks on factors that could have increased his sentence
CNN
—
After convicting former film producer Harvey Weinstein of rape and sexual assault, a Los Angeles jury could not reach a unanimous verdict Tuesday on alleged aggravating factors that could have increased his sentence.
The three charges Weinstein was convicted of – rape, sexual penetration by foreign object and forcible oral copulation – were all tied to one of his accusers, Jane Doe 1, a model and actress who testified the movie mogul assaulted her in a Beverly Hills hotel room in February 2013.
Jurors were asked to determine if Jane Doe 1 was harmed and particularly vulnerable, and if Weinstein committed the crimes with planning, professionalism, or sophistication.
Ten members of the jury found the aggravating factors had been met, but two jurors could not be swayed, one of the jurors told CNN.
“The jury has said they are not able to reach a unanimous verdict on these issues,” Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lisa Lench said, according to a pool report. “I am going to declare a mistrial with respect to the allegations.”
Had the jury found Weinstein guilty of the aggravating factors, a new California law would have then allowed the judge to enact a harsher sentence.
Jurors had deliberated for several hours Tuesday. After the jury indicated further deliberations would not sway them, neither the prosecution or the defense pushed to have the jurors deliberate further.
When Lench asked prosecutor Paul Thompson if Weinstein will be retried on the deadlock counts, the pool report said he responded: “We need to consult the victims first and foremost.”
Weinstein’s sentencing was tentatively set for January 9, with Lench allowing only Jane Doe 1 to offer a victim impact statement. He is expected to serve 18 years.
“Harvey Weinstein forever destroyed a part of me that night in 2013. I will never get that back,” said Jane Doe 1 in a statement released through her attorney. “The criminal trial was brutal. Weinstein’s lawyers put me through hell on the witness stand. But I knew I had to see this through the end, and I did … I hope Harvey Weinstein never sees the outside of a prison cell during his lifetime.”
The disgraced movie mogul was found guilty Monday of three of seven charges against him in his second sexual assault trial. The jury acquitted Weinstein of one count of sexual battery by restraint against a massage therapist in a hotel room in 2010.
They were a hung jury on one count of sexual battery by restraint, one count of forcible oral copulation and one count of rape related to two other women – including Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a filmmaker and first partner to California Governor Gavin Newsom.
Weinstein had pleaded not guilty to all charges against him. His spokesman said he was “disappointed” with the outcome of the trial but “he is prepared to continue fighting for his innocence.”
The verdict was reached as jurors entered their third week of deliberations, meeting for a total of 41 hours over a period of 10 days following weeks of oftentimes emotional testimony.
Two jurors who spoke with CNN after they were dismissed from court Tuesday shared their thoughts on the trial, both saying politics played absolutely no role in their deliberations.
“Everyone realized the weight of this trial. There’s a lot riding on this for both sides,” said Michael, a 62-year-old juror who declined to share his last name.
Michael said the contact the accusers had with Weinstein following their alleged assaults was a key factor in deciding the verdict. That was specifically applied to Siebel Newsom, who, according to dozens of emails presented as evidence in the trial, maintained contact with Weinstein.
Michael said he found Jane Doe 1 to be the most convincing.
“We felt horrible for everybody,” but felt like the addition of uncharged witnesses became confusing for some jurors, said Jay, another juror who also declined to share his last name.
“Everybody seemed believable. It’s hard to prove all of them with time and memory,” Jay added.
Elizabeth Fegan, an attorney representing Siebel Newsom, who was identified in court as Jane Doe 4, said they were disappointed the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict on the charges related to her client.
“My client, Jane Doe 4, shared her story not with an expectation to testify but to support all the survivors who bravely came forward,” Fegan said in a statement to CNN. “While we are heartened that the jury found Weinstein guilty on some of the counts, we are disappointed that the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict on Jane Doe 4. She will continue to fight for all women and all survivors of abuse against a system that permits the victim to be shamed and re-traumatized in the name of justice.”
Weinstein is two years into a 23-year sentence for a 2020 New York conviction, which his attorneys have appealed, putting more attention on the outcome of the trial in Los Angeles.
The weekslong Los Angeles trial saw emotional testimony from Weinstein’s accusers – a model, a dancer, a massage therapist and Siebel Newsom – all of whom were asked to recount the details of their allegations against him, provide details of meetings with the producer from years ago, and explain their reactions to the alleged assaults.
Additionally, four women testified they were subjected to similar behavior by Weinstein in other jurisdictions.
Weinstein initially faced 11 charges, but four counts connected to an unnamed woman were dropped without explanation. She did not testify in the trial.
In closing arguments, Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Marlene Martinez called Weinstein a “titan” who used his power in Hollywood to prey on and silence women.
Meanwhile, Weinstein’s attorneys maintained the allegations are either fabricated or occurred consensually as part of a “transactional relationship” with the movie producer, repeatedly saying there is no evidence of assault.
Defense attorney Alan Jackson called the accusers “fame and fortune seekers.”
Jane Doe 2, who was identified as Lauren Young, told her attorney Gloria Allred by phone that she was happy Weinstein was convicted on some counts despite there being a mistrial on her count, Allred said in a news conference after the verdict.
“I am relieved that Harvey Weinstein has been convicted because he deserves to be punished for the crimes that he committed, and he can no longer use his power to intimidate and sexually assault more women,” Young said in a statement read by Allred.
Cannibal Mark Latunski gets life sentence for killing, mutilation of Grindr date
A confessed Michigan cannibal was sentenced to life in prison for the Christmas Eve killing and mutilation of a man he met through a dating app in 2019.
Mark Latunski, 53, was handed a life sentence without the possibility of parole by a Shiawassee County judge after he pleaded guilty in September to the sickening slaughter of a 25-year-old hairdresser named Kevin Bacon.
Latunski was convicted of first-degree murder as well as disinterment and mutilation of a dead body, which he received an additional 11-month sentence for that will be served concurrently.
He confessed to stabbing Bacon in the back and removing parts of his body which he told investigators he ate. He said he cut off his testicles and ate them and had considered buying a dehydrator to make jerky out of Bacon’s muscles.
Advertisement
Bacon, of Swartz Creek, was reported missing by family members when he didn’t show up to breakfast on Christmas morning in 2019. Investigators found his car parked at Dollar General store and then tracked his last location to Latunski’s home in Bennington Township.
His butchered body was found three days later hanging upside down from the ceiling of Latunki’s basement. His ankles were tied to the rafters with rope, his throat was slit and body parts were removed.
Investigators said Latunski and Bacon met via the LGBTQ dating app Grindr. Latunski lured his victim to his home, where he brutally murdered him.
Latunski initially pleaded not guilty due to insanity but reversed course and pleaded guilty to murder right before the case was set to go to trial.
Following the plea, Shiawassee County Judge Matthew Stewart was given the power to determine if the murder charge would be classified as first-degree or second-degree murder. He ruled that the killing was premeditated first-degree murder in October.
With Post wires
After 25 years of wrongful imprisonment, 2 Georgia men set free after newly uncovered evidence exonerates them of murder charges
CNN
—
After spending 25 years in prison on murder convictions related to the 1996 shooting death of their friend, two Georgia men were exonerated this week, after new evidence uncovered in a true-crime podcast last year proved their innocence, their lawyers said.
Darrell Lee Clark and his co-defendant Cain Joshua Storey were 17 years old when they were arrested for their alleged involvement in the death of 15-year-old Brian Bowling.
He died from a gunshot wound to the head in his family’s mobile home on October 18, 1996, according to Clark’s lawyers, Christina Cribbs and Meagan Hurley, with the nonprofit Georgia Innocence Project.
Moments before the gun was fired, Bowling was on the phone with his girlfriend and told her he was playing a game of Russian roulette with a gun, which was brought to his home by Storey, who was in the room at the time of the shooting, according to a news release from the Georgia Innocence Project.
Storey was charged with involuntary manslaughter, but months later, police began investigating the death as a homicide, and interviewed two witnesses whose statements led authorities to tie Clark to Bowling’s death, the Georgia Innocence Project said.
“Despite the circumstances, which strongly indicated that Bowling accidentally shot himself in the head, at the urging of Bowling’s family members, police later began investigating the death as a homicide,” according to a motion filed by Clark’s attorneys, requesting a new trial.
The two teenagers were sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of murder and conspiracy to commit murder, following a weeklong trial in 1998.
Clark’s exoneration came a year and a half after investigative podcasters Susan Simpson and Jacinda Davis began scrutinizing his case in their Proof true-crime podcast in 2021, and interviewed two of the state’s key witnesses.
Through their investigation, new evidence emerged which “shattered the state’s theory of Clark’s involvement” in Bowling’s death and the podcasters flagged his case to the Georgia Innocence Project, according to its news release.
The first witness, a woman who lived near Bowling’s home was interviewed by police, who claimed she alleged the teens confessed they had “planned the murder of Bowling because he knew too much about a prior theft Storey and Clark had committed,” according to the Georgia Innocence Project.
Based on her testimony, Storey was charged with murder and Clark was arrested as a co-conspirator despite having a corroborated alibi, stating he was home on the night of the shooting, which was supported by two witnesses, according to Clark’s motion for a new trial.
But the woman revealed in the podcast, police coerced her into giving false statements and threatened to take her children away from her if she failed to comply, according to the Georgia Innocence Project.
Police claimed the other witness, a man who was in a different room of the Bowlings’ home at the time of the shooting, identified Clark from a photo lineup as the person he saw running through the yard on the night Bowling was shot, the news release said.
It was uncovered in the podcast the man’s testimony was based on an “unrelated, factually similar shooting” which he witnessed in 1976, and he never identified Clark as the individual in the yard, nor did he ever witness anyone in the yard on the night of the shooting, according to the Georgia Innocence Project.
Davis told CNN in an interview when she and Simpson started their investigation, they weren’t expecting anything to come of it, but as they interviewed more people, it was “clear that it just wasn’t adding up.”
“It took us a long time to talk to both of those witnesses. The podcast was happening in almost real time as an investigation. When we finally found and were able to talk to those two witnesses, it really solidified that both of these guys had been wrongly convicted,” Davis said.
Clark’s attorneys filed pleadings in September to challenge a wrongful conviction and ask for a new trial, citing new information which proved his conviction was based on false evidence and coercion, Hurley told CNN.
Clark, now 43, was released from the Floyd County Jail Thursday after the Rome Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office and Floyd County Superior Court Judge John Neidrach agreed the conviction should be overturned and all underlying charges against him dismissed, after evidence in the case was reexamined.
Storey, who admitted to bringing the gun to Bowling’s home, was also released after accepting a plea deal for involuntary manslaughter, and a 10-year sentence with time served, after spending 25 years in prison. He was also exonerated of murder charges.
Storey told CNN in an interview he was afraid to go to sleep the first night after he was released in case he would wake up and “realize it was all a dream.”
“It’s been surreal to say the least,” he added. “I believe it’s going to be great. One step at a time. I never allowed my mind to get locked up all those years, anyhow.”
“You never think something like that is going to happen to you,” said Lee Clark in a statement released by the Georgia Innocence Project. “Never would I have thought I would spend more than half my life in prison, especially for something I didn’t do.”
Clark’s father, Glen Clark, told CNN in an interview, “I’ve been waiting for this day for a long, long time. 25 years. My son was wrongly accused, and I knew it all these years. It’s hard for me to live with that.”
“I watched my son go into prison as a kid, I watched him go through prison, I watched him come out as a man. He became a man in prison,” he added.
Clark is living with his family in their home in Floyd County for the foreseeable future as he focuses on readjusting to life outside prison and rebuilding his life, he told CNN. Storey said he also moved back to Floyd County, with plans to go back to school and get a job.
Clark said Judge Neidrach apologized on behalf of the state of Georgia and Floyd County this week during the court hearing this week, which was an important step toward healing.
“That really touched my heart, because I had been living in corruption for so long, and it meant a lot to have someone acknowledge that wrong,” he told CNN.
The Georgia Innocence Project will work to support Clark during his transition and connect him to resources, and a personal fundraiser has been organized on the MightyCause platform, open to the public for donations to Clark and his family, Hurley said.
“It’s probably going to take some time to like truly process that he is free and doesn’t have to go back behind prison walls, because he spent most of his life behind them,” Hurley said.
“More than anything, he’s looking forward to getting to spend time with his family and rebuilding some of those relationships that he was, frankly, ripped away from at the age of 17,” she added.
The exonerations of both men were the culmination of a collaboration between Clark, Storey and his defense team, as well as the Bowling family, which was willing to take an “objective look at this case and reevaluate some of the things they have been told in the past,” Hurley said.
Davis was in the courtroom during Clark and Storey’s hearing this week and said she’s still “in shock” and feels a huge amount of relief for both men.
“In the end, I also feel for Brian Bowling’s family who have been incredibly gracious and supportive as well. It’s really rare when you have the victim’s family support the convictions being overturned,” Davis said.