Two men wrongly convicted and imprisoned for 17 years are suing Los Angeles County, claiming three sheriff’s detectives fabricated reports, hid exculpatory evidence and intimidated witnesses from telling the truth.
Making the allegations are attorneys for Juan Rayford and Dupree Glass, both of whom were convicted of multiple charges of attempted murder and sentenced to 11 life terms each as well as an additional 220 years for gang enhancements. The men, both teenagers at the time of their arrests, were accused of shooting at an occupied house in Lancaster in 2004.
The lawsuit, filed March 1 in U.S. District Court, seeks unspecified damages.
Rayford and Glass were released from prison in 2020 after an appellate court overturned their convictions. A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge later declared they were not the shooters after another prison inmate confessed to firing at the house. A second alleged shooter had died earlier.
While forensics indicated there were only two shooters, prosecutors concluded there must have been more, in order to fit the charges against Rayford and Glass, the lawsuit claimed.
The state has paid Rayford and Glass nearly $900,000 each as compensation for their time behind bars. Now the two are seeking damages from the county and the investigators who put them there.
Law enforcement ‘reckless’
The actions of law enforcement were “deliberate, reckless, wanton, cruel, motivated by evil motive or intent. … The criminal case against plaintiffs was weak, and the only evidence against them was the false testimony fabricated by defendants,” the lawsuit states.
The Sheriff’s Department issued a statement this week denying the suit’s allegations.
“The department has not been served with this lawsuit, but it is committed to conducting thorough criminal investigations in order to present facts and evidence to the district attorney for prosecution consideration,” said the statement. “We respect the judicial…
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