{"id":89852,"date":"2024-01-13T04:57:08","date_gmt":"2024-01-13T04:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.estaql.com\/louis-wright-man-wrongly-convicted-of-sex-attack-on-school-girl-is-freed-after-35-years-us-news\/"},"modified":"2024-01-13T04:57:08","modified_gmt":"2024-01-13T04:57:08","slug":"louis-wright-man-wrongly-convicted-of-sex-attack-on-school-girl-is-freed-after-35-years-us-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/louis-wright-man-wrongly-convicted-of-sex-attack-on-school-girl-is-freed-after-35-years-us-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Louis Wright: Man wrongly convicted of sex attack on school girl is freed after 35 years | US News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Louis Wright: Man wrongly convicted of sex attack on school girl is freed after 35 years | US News<\/h2>\n

Louis Wright: Man wrongly convicted of sex attack on school girl is freed after 35 years | US News<\/p>\n

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An innocent man who spent 35 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of sexually assaulting a school girl has been awarded more than \u00a31m in compensation. <\/p>\n

Louis Wright, now 65, was released earlier this month after DNA tests ruled him out as the perpetrator of the 1988 attack on the 11-year-old girl in Albion, Michigan.<\/p>\n

Mr Wright became the prime suspect after an off-duty officer said he had seen him in the neighbourhood five hours earlier.<\/p>\n

Police claimed he had confessed – but the interview was not recorded and he did not sign a confession, according to the Cooley Law School Innocence Project, which represented Mr Wright.<\/p>\n

No identification procedures were conducted by police and the victim was never asked to identify Mr Wright, said the independent, non-profit law school, which has helped to free nine innocent people.<\/p>\n

Mr Wright eventually pleaded no-contest to the charges and was jailed for between 25 and 50 years.<\/p>\n

A request to withdraw his plea at sentencing was denied.<\/p>\n

But he was exonerated after DNA analysis established he was not responsible for the attack on the girl in September.<\/p>\n

People who are exonerated based on new evidence are eligible for $50,000 (\u00a339,000) for every year spent in a Michigan prison.<\/p>\n

The attorney general’s office sometimes resists making payment – but quickly agreed to compensate Mr Wright.<\/p>\n

He was awarded $1.75m (\u00a31.37m) in a deal approved by a judge on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

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‘Nothing can make up for 35 years in prison’<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mr Wright told the AP news agency that he would probably use some of the money for a house and a vehicle for his sister, Darlene Hall.<\/p>\n

His lawyer, Wolf Mueller, said in a statement: “Nothing can make up for 35 years in a Michigan prison for something he did not do.<\/p>\n

“This is the first step toward getting Louis’s life back at the age of 65.”<\/p>\n

Mr Wright was eligible for parole consideration on several occasions, starting in 2008.<\/p>\n

But he refused to take a sex offender therapy class – a key condition for his release – and remained in prison until he was cleared by the DNA evidence.<\/p>\n

Mr Mueller added: “[Mr Wright] said, ‘I didn’t do this crime. I’m not taking a therapy class’.<\/p>\n

“He cost himself several years, just standing on principle.<\/p>\n

“Not a lot of guys would do that.”<\/p>\n

Read more: <\/strong><\/p>\n

Man has rape conviction overturned after 17 years in prison<\/strong>
\u00a31bn set aside to fund compensation for Post Office victims<\/strong><\/p>\n

But Mr Wright insisted he knew he would be cleared by the DNA evidence.<\/p>\n

“I spent the last couple (of) months in prison with a smile on my face. Everyone thought I had something up my sleeve,” he said.<\/p>\n

He has since been enjoying spending time with family and simple activities such as playing pool.<\/p>\n

The Calhoun County prosecutor has now committed to reopening the investigation in a bid to establish the identity of the person responsible for the attack.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Louis Wright: Man wrongly convicted of sex attack on school girl is freed after 35 years | US News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Louis Wright: Man wrongly convicted of sex attack on school girl is freed after 35 years | US News Louis Wright: Man wrongly convicted of sex attack on school girl is freed after 35 years | US News An innocent man who spent 35 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of sexually assaulting a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7711],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-7711"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89852\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}