A man who spent 37 years in prison after he was wrongfully convicted for a 1983 murder and robbery in Long Beach is poised to receive a $3 million settlement from Los Angeles County.
The county Claims Board recommended Monday that the Board of Supervisors settle a lawsuit filed by 62-year-old Samuel Bonner, whose conviction was overturned in 2019 due to prosecutorial misconduct.
Andrew M. Stein, an attorney who represents Bonner, declined to discuss the pending settlement. Bonner, a truck driver who lives in California’s Central Valley, could not be reached for comment. He has been free since 2019, when Superior Court Judge Daniel Lowenthal ordered his release and would later declare him factually innocent.
Bonner’s case began on Nov. 11, 1982, when he agreed to drive an acquaintance, Watson Allison, to Rose Park in Long Beach to meet with a man named Leonard Polk, according to court records.
An undercover police officer followed Bonner’s gray Ford because it looked suspicious, he said, and noticed Allison talking to a bicyclist, Polk, while the vehicle was idling at an intersection, records show. The officer watched as Polk and Allison walked into a nearby apartment unit. Bonner did not get out of the vehicle and drove away, records state.
About 15 minutes later, the undercover officer and two residents observed Allison leave the apartment building several times, carrying items and placing them in Polk’s car, before driving away in the vehicle alone.
Neighbors then entered Polk’s apartment and found that he had been shot and killed, court records say.
Bonner and Allison were arrested for the robbery and murder of Polk. Allison was believed to be the gunman, but Bonner was charged under the state’s felony murder rule, which allowed prosecutors to charge someone with murder if he was involved in a felony resulting in a homicide.
Police searched Bonner’s vehicle and home but did not find any items belonging to Polk and, indeed, there would…
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