The state of Michigan has agreed to pay $1.75 million to an innocent man who was wrongly convicted of sexual assault and spent 35 years in prison.
Lewis Wright died in the 1988 attack on an 11-year-old girl in Albion, a small town in southwestern Michigan, after authorities announced that DNA tests showed he was not the perpetrator. He was released in May.
Those who are exonerated based on new evidence are eligible to be paid $50,000 for each year they spend in a Michigan prison. Although the attorney general's office sometimes resists payments based on the law's strict standards, it quickly agreed to compensate Mr. Wright.
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The deal was approved by a judge on Wednesday.
Wright told The Associated Press that she will likely use some of the money to buy a house and a car for her sister.
“Nothing can ever make up for the 35 years he spent in a Michigan prison for something he didn't do,” said Wright's attorney, Wolf Moller. “This is the first step for Louis to get his life back at age 65.”
Police investigating the assault identified Wright as a suspect after an off-duty police officer said he had seen him in the neighborhood. Police said the suspect confessed, but the interrogation was not recorded and he did not sign a confession, according to the Cooley Law School Innocence Project.
A man wrongly convicted of sexual assault will be awarded $1.75 million in restitution after serving 35 years in a Michigan prison.
The Innocence Project said the victim was never asked about Wright's identity.
Wright ultimately pleaded no contest to the charges and was sentenced to 25 to 50 years in prison. He then tried to withdraw his appeal at sentencing, but that request was denied.
Wright had been considered for parole multiple times since 2008, but refused to take sex offender therapy classes, a key condition for his release, and remained in prison until DNA testing cleared him. said Mueller.
“He said, 'I didn't commit this crime. I didn't take any therapy classes.' He spent several years just standing by his principles,” Mueller said Friday. . “Not many men would do that.”
Wright said she knew she would ultimately be found not guilty when her mouth was swabbed for DNA testing last summer.
“I spent the last few months in prison smiling. Everyone thought there was something wrong with me,” he said.
Since his release, Wright has reunited with his family and enjoyed simple things like playing pool at a bar. Thanksgiving was special, he said, because it meant eating a real turkey dinner instead of “a white slab of slime stuff.”
“I had the real thing,” Wright said, adding, “Now I'm just taking it one day at a time.”
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Separately, Mueller filed a lawsuit against the police department seeking more than $100 million. The lawsuit alleges that Wright's rights were violated during the 1988 investigation.
