Illinois man wrongly imprisoned for 10 years sues Indiana city, police

[November 07, 2017]  By Suzannah Gonzales

CHICAGO (Reuters) - An Illinois man who served 10 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of armed robbery and who was not granted a pardon by then-Indiana Governor Mike Pence sued four Indiana police officers and the city that employed them on Monday, alleging they fabricated evidence and coerced witnesses.

Keith Cooper, 50, of Country Club Hills, Illinois, was imprisoned for a 1996 armed robbery in Elkhart, Indiana, but was set free in 2006 after his co-defendant's conviction was overturned.

In February 2017, more than a decade after he was set free, he was granted a pardon by Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb. It was the first gubernatorial pardon based on actual innocence in Indiana history, according to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, South Bend Division.

Pence, who is now U.S. vice president, had declined to make a decision on the request for a pardon based on innocence, because he said that Cooper needed to exhaust the judicial process first, Cooper's lawyer, Elliot Slosar, said.

Monday's lawsuit claims that the four Elkhart officers fabricated evidence and coerced witnesses to falsely identify Cooper in the crime, Slosar said by telephone.

Those constitutional violations were a result of training the officers received at Elkhart Police Department, Slosar said.

The officers named as defendants in the lawsuit were Steve Rezutko, Edward Windbigler, Steven Ambrose and Tom Cutler.

Elkhart city attorney Vlado Vranjes declined comment on the lawsuit, saying he had not seen it. A representative for police, which now employs Windbigler as chief, could not be reached. The other officers are now retired. Ambrose and Rezutko declined to comment, and efforts to reach Cutler and Windbigler were not immediately successful.

The defendants caused Cooper to suffer physical harm and emotional distress during his 10-year incarceration, the lawsuit said. Cooper seeks compensatory damages, legal fees and other relief.

Juries in similar cases have been awarded between $1 million and $2 million for each year of wrongful incarceration, Slosar said.

"We're looking to get Keith enough compensation so that he can rebuild his life and to ensure that this never happens again," he said.

In 2007, Cooper's co-defendant in the armed robbery, Christopher Parish, who was also wrongly convicted and whose criminal case was dismissed, filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit against Rezutko, Ambrose, Cutler and the city of Elkhart, the lawsuit said.

The city of Elkhart settled with Parish for $4.9 million, Vranjes said.

(Reporting by Suzannah Gonzales; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

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