Cleveland Heights to pay $4M to wrongly convicted man
CLEVELAND — A man who spent 16 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit has settled a lawsuit with Cleveland Heights for $4 million.
Christopher Miller, 46, was sentenced to nearly four decades in prison in 2002 after a Cuyahoga County jury found him guilty of sexual assaulting and robbing a woman in her home in April 2001.
He was exonerated in 2017 through DNA testing. He sued Cleveland Heights in U.S. District Court in Cleveland in June 2020.
“Too many years were stolen from me and my family. I can never get that time back, time to raise my children and build my life. But I am thriving now, and I am glad to put this final chapter of my case behind me so I can move forward” Miller said in a statement.
The victim in the case said two men forced her into her Euclid Heights Boulevard apartment at gunpoint about midnight April 28, 2001, raped her and stole her purse. Her cellphone was inside the purse, and Cleveland Heights police detectives began tracking it. About eight hours later, calls were made on the phone, and detectives tracked the phone to Miller.
The Ohio Innocence Project got involved in his case in 2015 and convinced a judge to order DNA testing of evidence police collected at the scene. Those results showed Miller was not one of the woman’s attackers.
Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Kelly Ann Gallagher declared him to be wrongfully imprisoned in August 2021. Two men, Richard Stadmire and Charles Boyd, have been convicted in the Cleveland Heights attack, and they are in prison.
Cleveland Heights and the police officers deny wrongdoing and any liability. In a statement, city spokesperson Mike Thomas said, “Proceeding to try a lawsuit over events nearly 22 years ago poses a substantial risk for both sides in these circumstances.”
Sarah Gelsomino, one of Miller’s attorneys, said her client’s priority now is family.
“While I think Chris should be entitled to a lot more, considering he lost 16 years of his life to this wrongful conviction, this allows him and his family to move forward,” she said. “The ripple effects of wrongful convictions are intense. And the fact that this kind of misconduct could happen and then be left unchecked really undermines confidence in the entire legal system.”