New York Metropolis can pay $10.5 million to settle a federal civil rights lawsuit filed by a person who spent 24 years in jail on a homicide conviction that was overturned after a witness who had positioned him on the crime scene recanted, metropolis officers stated Thursday.
The conviction of Shawn Williams, who was freed in 2018, was the 14th overturned conviction linked to retired Detective Louis Scarcella, a former Brooklyn murder detective who has been accused of coercing witnesses and framing suspects throughout the high-crime period of the late Nineteen Eighties and Nineties.
Williams, who’s now 47, was convicted in 1994 within the deadly taking pictures of his neighbor Marvin Mason the 12 months earlier than.
Absent any forensic proof tying Williams to the crime, prosecutors relied on the testimony of a girl who stated she had seen him on the scene with a gun. The lady recanted her testimony in 2013, saying she had been coerced into naming Williams because the gunman by Scarcella.
The $10.5 million settlement with Williams to settle his lawsuit in opposition to Scarcella and two different officers was first reported in The New York Occasions.
“No amount of cash can provide me again the years they took from me,” Williams stated in an announcement to the Occasions. “However I’m going to maintain rebuilding my life and looking forward to a brighter future.”
A spokesperson for New York Metropolis’s regulation division stated the settlement was in the very best curiosity of all events.
Town has paid tens of millions of {dollars} in settlements over different instances linked to Scarcella, who has denied any wrongdoing.
Richard Signorelli, an legal professional for Scarcella, stated the retired detective “categorically denies all of the allegations of misconduct” in Williams’ case. Signorelli stated the settlement settlement “doesn’t represent any admission of legal responsibility or wrongdoing on Det. Scarcella’s half.”
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