Ohio man wins $45 million in a lawsuit after being wrongfully imprisoned for 20 years

An Ohio man was awarded $45 million after he won a civil lawsuit against a local police department for being wrongfully imprisoned for more than 20 years.

Dean Gillispie sued the police department for Miami Township, located in southwestern Ohio, and a former detective over suppression of evidence and tainting of eyewitness identifications, which he argued led to his conviction for rape and kidnapping in 1991.

Gillispie served prison time until 2011, but the Ohio Innocence Project, a program at the University of Cincinnati’s law school that works to free those who have been falsely convicted of a crime, stepped in to prove his innocence. 

Gillispie was convicted of raping and kidnapping twin sisters and another woman in two separate incidents, but the jury in the lawsuit decided that the former detective, Scott Moore, violated Gillispie’s rights by hiding evidence that could have helped in his defense.

Moore told the victims that they might not recognize Gillispie during the original trial because he “dyed his hair.”

Gillispie has asserted that he was innocent since he was first tried, and a county judge said last year that he was wrongfully imprisoned.

“I’m just one of 3,199 people that this happened to in the United States of America. Those people have served over 28,000 years in prison for crimes they did not commit. This has to stop. This system has to be fixed,” Gillispie said at a news conference after the ruling. 

Mark Godsey, the director of the Ohio Innocence Project, said nothing can repay Gillispie for the “horror” he experienced, but the jury’s decision sends a message that people in power need to change “the way they do things.”