Gary Washington wins $14M Baltimore settlement after 30 years wrongful imprisonment

Baltimore approved a $14 million settlement to Gary Washington, wrongfully convicted in 1986 after police allegedly coerced a witness and fabricated evidence.

Baltimore pays $14 million to man jailed for three decades over manipulated evidence

The Baltimore Board of Estimates voted on 6 January to approve a $14 million settlement to Gary Washington, resolving a civil rights lawsuit that accused Baltimore Police of coercing witnesses and fabricating evidence to secure a wrongful murder conviction, loevy.com reports.

The case dates to December 1986, when Faheem Ali was shot and killed in East Baltimore following an argument. Washington, then 25 and a new father, was arrested and convicted largely on the testimony of a 12-year-old witness. Nearly a decade later, that witness recanted, stating that Baltimore police officers had threatened to separate him from his mother and charge him with the homicide unless he testified against Washington.

Petitions for post-conviction relief were repeatedly denied until August 2018, when a court overturned the conviction, granted Washington a writ of actual innocence, and ordered his release after more than 30 years behind bars. The state formally dropped all charges in January 2019.

In 2024, Washington received a separate $3 million payment from the state of Maryland under the Walter Lomax Act of 2021, legislation designed to compensate individuals who have been wrongly imprisoned. Maryland Governor Wes Moore issued a personal apology at the time. "11,459 days, or 31 years, were stolen from Mr. Washington," Moore said. "On behalf of the entire state, I'm sorry for the failure of the justice system."

The civil lawsuit against the City of Baltimore and the individual officers involved continued in parallel. The $14 million settlement was authorised nearly 39 years after Washington's original arrest.

Renee Spence, a partner at Loevy + Loevy, the firm representing Washington, told CBS Baltimore that the outcome marked a significant, if incomplete, reckoning. "While this settlement cannot make up for the more than three decades Mr. Washington spent wrongfully imprisoned and falsely branded a murderer, it is an important end to a nearly 40-year legal battle to clear his name and hold these officers accountable," Spence said. Washington is also represented by Jon Loevy, Gayle Horn, and Roshna Bala Keen of the same firm.

Source: Google News MT — Crime (en)