3 wrongly convicted of murder to get $4.5 million
CLEVELAND — Cuyahoga County has agreed to pay $4.5 million to three East Cleveland men who served two decades in prison for murder convictions that were later overturned.
The settlement will resolve claims of wrongdoing made by Laurese Glover, Eugene Johnson and Derrick Wheatt against the county and former county prosecutors Carmen Marino and Deborah Naiman.
The three men were convicted in the 1995 death of Clifton Hudson. They were released from prison in 2015 when a judge granted new trials based on new information.
The County Council is expected to approve the settlement at a meeting on Tuesday. The settlement is the product of negotiations that have taken place over the past few weeks. If approved, each man will get $1.5 million.
It was not immediately clear whether the proposed settlement also will resolve claims the trio made against East Cleveland and its detectives. Court filings indicate that is likely not the case, as a document from Feb. 9 mentioned only settlement talks between the three men and Cuyahoga County.
The county’s settlement prevents what could have been an even larger verdict should the case have gone to trial.
East Cleveland has been in financial straits for years and has struggled while defending itself in this case. U. S. District Judge James Gwin sanctioned the city in November after Law Director Willa Hemmons suggested that the three men depose a former police sergeant who was in a coma at the time, among other unavailable witnesses.
Mary Louise Madigan and Eliza Wing, members of the county’s communication staff, did not return phone calls left Friday. Hemmons did not return messages seeking comment.
Johnson and Wheatt, who are both 40, and 39-yearold Glover maintained their innocence during their time in prison.
Common Pleas Judge Nancy Margaret Russo ordered a new trial in 2015, after lawyers working for the Ohio Innocence Project found that evidence was suppressed at the original trial that threw into question the state’s theory. Russo wrote that Marino “maliciously inserted himself into a criminal proceeding.”
The trio’s lawsuits say Marino and Naiman told East Cleveland police in 1998 to not release records relating to Hudson’s death to the defendants, who by that point had been convicted, and instead told the department to send copies of the records to the prosecutor’s office.
Records were not released until 2013, when Ohio Innocence Project attorneys again requested them.
The trio’s lawsuits were filed in February and March of last year. In addition to claims against Marino and Naiman, the men said that East Cleveland detectives who investigated Hudson’s shooting death manipulated witnesses and withheld information that could help exonerate the men.
The lawsuits were on a fast track toward a trial that was set to begin in December, but both the county and East Cleveland appealed Gwin’s decisions to the 6th U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.
The 6th Circuit has not yet ruled.