An Ohio man has been awarded $45 million in damages in a civil lawsuit against a police department and a detective whose actions earned him an undeserved prison sentence.
Dean Gillispie spent twenty years behind bars, wrongfully imprisoned.
Police officers influenced witnesses
Gillispie is suing the Miami Township Police Department and former Detective Scott Moore for suppressing evidence and influencing witnesses in a 1991 kidnapping and rape case. He was convicted in 1991 and only released in 2011, 20 years after. Today the man is 57 years old and lives in Fairborn, a suburb of Dayton.
“The horror that has been inflicted on Dean Gillispie, his family and his community is hard to comprehend. The way the authorities imposed a sentence and then refused to acknowledge a mistake was disappointing. Nothing can fix Dean,” said the director of a human rights organization, Mark Godsey.
The $45 million deal is an Ohio state record. So far, the defendant in the lawsuit has not announced whether he will appeal the case, reports USA Today.
Sentenced without incriminating biological evidence
Dean Gillispie has steadfastly maintained his innocence since the first day he was charged.
However, she received a terrible sentence for the rape and abduction of twin sisters and the abduction of a third woman in another attack. But at trial Detective Moore was shown to have violated Gillispie’s rights by withholding evidence that would have aided the defense. Additionally, the detective claimed that a witness had identified the defendant, although this was not true, and later told victims they might not recognize Gillispie at trial because she “dyed her hair.”
No biological evidence has linked Gillispie to the murders, also notes USA Today.
