Earlier this month, the city of Cleveland agreed to pay a combined $18 million to Rickey Jackson, Wiley Bridgeman and his brother Kwame Ajamu, three men who spent decades in prison for a 1975 killing they did not commit, according to cleveland.com.
The trio reached this settlement during an 12-hour mediation held by U.S. District Judge Dan Polster, and will end the lawsuits each man filed for the time they spent behind bars.
To quote from the cleveland.com article:
The men, now in their 60s, were convicted of murder in 1975 for the shooting of money order collector Harold Franks at what was then the Fairmont Cut Rate Store on the city’s East Side.
Nearly 40 years later, Vernon recanted his testimony and judges overturned the men’s criminal convictions.
The men also filed suit in federal court in 2015 against the city and former detectives for what they said was a culture of racist and unethical cops who would often do anything to close a case.
