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Exonerated Duo Sue Cleveland Cops: ‘We Got Kidnapped For 15 Years’.
Two men who each spent 15 years in prison for a crime that they were later acquitted of committing have sued the Cleveland police officers who put them behind bars.
Michael Sutton and Kenny Phillips accused Cleveland police officers Daniel Lentz and Michael Keane, as well as former detective Carl Hartman, of violating their civil rights by conspiring to fabricate and suppress evidence to pin the shooting on them.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Cleveland, also accuses the Cuyahoga County prosecutor’s office of instituting and defending a decadeslong policy that allowed police to withhold police reports and witness statements favorable to defendants.
Sarah Gelsomino, an attorney at Friedman and Gilbert, announced the lawsuit at a news conference on Wednesday to mark the one-year anniversary that a jury acquitted Sutton and Phillips of the crime.
Phillips and Sutton toasted with champagne.
“I’m hoping we’re gonna get some justice,” Sutton said in an interview. “What we’ve been through is traumatizing. We got kidnapped for 15 years.”
Phillips said the convictions stole their lives and ripped them from their family members.
“We walked out our doors one day, and we didn’t come back until 15 years later,” Phillips said.
The men said that after spending their entire adult lives defending themselves against the accusations of being attempted murderers, they were excited to put the officials who pinned that label on them on the defense.
“They’re in the drivers’ seat now,” Gelsomino said, referring to her clients. “It’s a powerful shift in dynamics.”
Lexi Bauer, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office, said in a statement that the office does not have a policy of withholding evidence.
“The Cuyahoga County prosecutor’s office has prosecuted more than 200,000 cases since the Sutton and Phillips case was tried in 2006,” the statement said. “With so few cases overturned, it is abundantly clear that the Cuyahoga County prosecutor’s office operates in an exemplary manner in the prosecution of criminal cases.”
The federal filing comes after the men in November filed a lawsuit in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court asking a judge to declare the men wrongfully imprisoned. If successful, they each would be able to collect more than $56,000 for each year they spent behind bars.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s office has filed a response opposing the declaration, and the two sides are in negotiations.
A jury found Sutton, now 36, and Phillips, now 35, not guilty on Sept. 27, 2022, after a weeklong trial. Justin Herdman, the former U.S. attorney in Cleveland and now a lawyer at Jones Day, and Diane Menashe, then at
