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Man wrongly jailed for 22 years sues
©Associated Press
September 27, 2002
A mentally retarded man who spent 22 years in prison before DNA evidence cleared him of murder is suing the Broward County Sheriff's Office and the former deputies who investigated his case.
Jerry Frank Townsend, who was convicted of or confessed to killing six women in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, was released from prison in 2001 after investigators reviewing Broward cases used DNA to prove that he did not kill two of the women.
A review of his taped confessions cast doubt on the two other murders in Broward, and Miami-Dade prosecutors no longer had evidence in the two cases there.
According to the lawsuit, detectives took advantage of Townsend's low IQ to coerce him into confessing to the crimes.
"Defendants fabricated evidence, concealed exculpatory evidence, tampered with witnesses and coerced a false confession by intimidation and deception from the plaintiff, who they knew was a mentally challenged person," the suit says.
Townsend has an IQ of 56, which is equivalent to the mental capacity of a 7-year-old.
Townsend, now 50, was charged with raping a woman in 1979 in Miami. Police linked him to two Miami-Dade murders and contacted detectives who were investigating murders in Broward.
DNA now points to Eddie Lee Mosley, who has been in a mental institution since 1987, when he was found incompetent to stand trial in two other murder cases.
"Not only did they know or should have known that (Townsend) was innocent of the charges brought against him, they should have known the identity of the actual perpetrator," the suit says.
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