Group items tagged

Javier Perez Original Article06/04/2014By David Edwards A Florida activist has said that he discovered that he was framed for public masturbation by one officer who did not like the idea of police being recorded on video. In a video posted to his...

This Fathers Day, the Innocence Project pays tribute to the Diaz family, whose father, Luis Diaz was wrongfully imprisoned for 25 years. His three children fought for their father's release and helped him adjust after he finally came home at the age of 69. Luis became a suspect after a rape victim saw him at a gas station and thought that he resembled her attacker. Luis and Caridad Diaz were Cuban immigrants, and Luis had found work as a fry cook in Coral Gables, Florida, before his arrest threw the family into turmoil. His son Jose speaks of the night that his father was arrested, his father's trial and the years of prison visits that the family endured:

Alexandra Westover Original Article (Video available)02/16/2014By DOYLE MURPHY A Florida woman wasn't raped after all - she just didn't want to get in trouble for missing work, authorities said.Alexandra Westover, 21, of Boca Raton, had reporte...

The 9,389 days Anthony Caravella wrongfully spent in prison still haunt him, but he was relieved Tuesday that two former police officers who put him away are finally being held accountable. Jurors decided that William Mantesta and George Pierson framed Caravella, then a mentally challenged 15 year old, for the 1983 rape and murder of a Miramar woman and should pay him $7 million for the close to 26 years he spent in prison.

PUNTA GORDA, Fla.- The woman wanted for making false accusations of rape on the Charlotte County campus of Edison State College in 2009 has been arrested. Vikki Supplee, 34, of Port Charlotte, was taken into custody on Thursday, after being served a warr

Frank Lee Smith died of cancer on death row, just months before DNA exonerated him of raping and murdering an 8-year-old girl in Fort Lauderdale. Now, more than 13 years later, his family's civil lawsuit against the Broward Sheriff's Office and two detectives accused of framing him has finally been settled. Smith's death made him a national symbol because it was the first case in the U.S. that scientifically proved an innocent man had died in prison for a crime he didn't commit. But the financial settlement reached with the Sheriff's Office - on behalf of the agency and retired detectives Richard Scheff and Philip Amabile - is much less than the millions awarded in Broward's other notorious wrongful conviction cases. The civil suit was recently settled for just $340,000 - including attorney fees and legal costs, lawyers Michael Wrubel and James Green told the Sun Sentinel. They filed the lawsuit on behalf of Smith's closest surviving relative, his half-sister Virginia Smith, of Sunrise.

"For six years, one month and 12 days, Jerry Paul Tippins had remained in jail accused of one of the worst things imaginable. But Thursday his longtime proclamations of innocence echoed loudly through a Jacksonville courtroom when he was found not guilty of sexually abusing his 2-year-old daughter."