Detroit reaches $7.5M deal in wrongful conviction lawsuit
By ED WHITE
Associated Press
DETROIT (AP) — The city of Detroit has reached a $7.5 million settlement with a man who spent eight years in prison before a prosecutor agreed to drop four murder convictions. Davontae Sanford was just 15 when he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the fatal shootings of four people in 2007. But the case took a strange turn when a professional hit man stepped forward and said he was responsible for the killings. Sanford insisted he was innocent and took a plea deal only because he felt poorly represented by a lawyer. In 2016, the Wayne County prosecutor dropped Sanford’s convictions citing police misconduct, not a confession from hit man Vincent Smothers.
