A man who spent 25 years for a crime he did not commit won a $7.5 million settlement with the city of Detroit five years after his release from prison.
Desmond Ricks, now 56, was 26 years old when he was convicted of fatally shooting a friend outside a restaurant in 1992. Police seized a gun that belonged to Ricks’ mother and said it was the murder weapon.
Desmond Ricks spent 25 years behind bars and was released in 2017, he sued as he should have.
Ricks was convicted in 1992 for fatally shooting a friend outside a restaurant but continued to maintain his innocence the entire time.
He was vindicated after gun experts and University of Michigan law students helped prove his innocence.
On Tuesday, Ricks won a $7.5 million settlement by the city of Detroit and any officers involved should be indicted for ruining this man’s life!
Ricks claimed police switched the bullets to frame him for the murder.
The bullets that were used in the fatal shooting did not resemble the bullets examined at the trial decades earlier, unbelievable isn’t it?
During depositions in the lawsuit, even the city’s expert acknowledged that the bullet analysis by the police lab decades ago was flat-out
On Tuesday, after the City Council approved the massive settlement, Rick said he was ‘not greedy, but ‘thankful,’ the news outlet reported.
‘It’s a blessing to be alive with my children and grandchildren,’ Ricks said.
He also called it a ‘blessing,’ that he didn’t lose his life while in prison, according to the Associated Press.
In 2016, the Innocence Clinic at University of Michigan law school asked a judge to reopen the case.
Photos of two bullets taken from the victim, Gerry Bennett, did not resemble the bullets that were examined by a defense expert before a trial decades earlier.
The actual bullets, surprisingly, were still in Detroit police storage. Examinations showed they did not match the .38-caliber gun identified as the weapon.
A judge granted Ricks a new trial, but prosecutors in response dropped charges.
Attorney David Moran, director of the Innocence Clinic, called it a ‘truly egregious case.’ ‘It was layer upon layer upon layer of police misconduct,’ he said.
After Ricks was released, he and his family filed a $125 million civil rights lawsuit seeking compensatory and punitive damages for the alleged violations of his constitutional rights that led to a wrongful conviction, CBS News reported.
Thanks to The Daily Mail, CBS News, and The Associated Press for contributing to this article.
Spent 25 of the prime years of his life, (26 – 51), in prison for a crime the police framed him for. 7.5 million sounds like an insult.