Man wrongly convicted in Calif. gets a $21 million settlement
CAMARILLO, Calif. – The city of Simi Valley has reached a $21 million settlement with Craig Coley, who was wrongly convicted of a 1978 double murder and then exonerated after spending nearly four decades behind bars.
Coley was accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend Rhonda Wicht, 24, and her son Donald Wicht, 4, at their home in Simi Valley on Nov. 11, 1978. Coley was arrested later that day.
He was tried twice for the crime after a jury deadlocked 10-2 in favor of conviction on April 12, 1979. A second jury found Coley guilty on Jan. 3, 1980. He was sentenced on Feb. 26, 1980, to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The impetus to reopen Coley’s case came from within the Simi Valley Police Department. A detective who saw red flags pursued the case for 28 years.
City Manager Eric Levitt said the efforts of Mike Bender, the now-retired detective, and others who championed for justice in the Coley case are “a source of pride” for the department. While the city can’t make up for the decades Coley spent behind bars, Levitt said, the settlement is the “right thing to do.”
Discovery of DNA evidence initially thought to have been destroyed exonerated Coley. The evidence led to a determination of factual innocence, and Coley was pardoned by then-Gov. Jerry Brown in November 2017.
Coley’s term, at nearly 39 years, is the longest in California for someone whose conviction has been overturned, according to the National Registry of Exonerations, a project involving UC Irvine and the law schools of the University of Michigan and Michigan State University. Coley’s time behind bars is the 10th-longest nationwide for a proven wrongful conviction case, according to the registry’s extensive database.
Brown signed a bill in May 2018 allowing for the distribution of nearly $2 million to the pardoned man. It was then the largest single payment issued by the state for a wrongful conviction.
At the time, Coley, then 70, said the money would help him restart his life.
“I’m 70 years old, but it’s a head start,” Coley said.
Bender’s interest in the case began in 1989 when he was a Simi Valley police detective. After coming across information on the Wicht murders and taking a closer look at the case, he started to doubt the conviction.
“There were lots of red flags,” Bender told The Star in 2017.