Settlement reached in infamous ‘Norfolk Four’ case

RICHMOND, Va.—The city of Norfolk has agreed to pay $4.9 million to four former sailors who were wrongly convicted of a woman’s rape and murder based on intimidating police interrogations. A copy of the settlement agreement for the “Norfolk Four” was obtained by The Associated Press.

The state also has agreed to pay $3.5 million.

The payments close out a decades-long case that drew widespread attention as the men’s innocence claims were backed by dozens of former FBI agents, ex-prosecutors and crime novelist John Grisham.

“These guys can now put all this behind them and try to recoup their lives,” said Tony Troy, a lawyer who represented one of the sailors.

The men—Eric Wilson, Danial Williams, Joseph Dick and Derek Tice— were pardoned by then-Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe last year of the 1997 rape and murder of Michelle Moore-Bosko.

Moore-Bosko’s husband found her stabbed and strangled body in their apartment in July of that year after returning from a week at sea.

Williams, who lived in the same building, was quickly identified as a suspect because a neighbor told police he had a crush on the victim. Williams admitted to her rape and murder—the first of a series of confessions that the men, then-sailors at the Naval base in Norfolk, say were forced by police.

DNA evidence matched only one person: Omar Ballard, the fifth man convicted in the case. Ballard, who pleaded guilty in 2000, acknowledged he was solely responsible and is serving a life sentence.

The Norfolk Four have said they cracked after they were threatened with the death penalty and repeatedly called liars. One of the men recalled a detective shoving him into a corner and showing him a picture of Moore-Bosko’s bloody body. The confessions conflicted with one another. Ballard’s account was the only one containing information matching the crime scene.

The detective who questioned them, Robert Glenn Ford, was convicted in 2011 of extortion and lying to the FBI in unrelated cases.