Wrongfully convicted man who spent 10 years in jail sues Indiana city, police
INDIANAPOLIS — An Illinois man, pardoned earlier this year after a wrongful conviction for armed robbery, filed a federal lawsuit Monday against the city of Elkhart, Ind., and police officers alleged to have framed him.
Cooper, 50, who was convicted of a 1996 robbery, spent 10 years behind bars before DNA evidence, recanted statements by witnesses and accusations of a detective manipulating witnesses led to his release.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, also names Steve Rezutko, Edward Windbigler, Steven Ambrose and Tom Cutler, who were Elkhart Police Department officers during the armed robbery investigation.
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"It took more than two decades for Keith to finally get his name back," Cooper's attorney, Elliot Slosar, said in a statement. "Today begins his much shorter journey towards rebuilding the life he once enjoyed before being framed for a crime he did not commit."
The lawsuit accuses the city and the other defendants of violating his constitutional rights, including his right to a fair trial. He's seeking unspecified damages.
An Elkhart official did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The individuals named in the lawsuit could not immediately be reached for comment.
Cooper's plight became widely known after a 2015 Indianapolis Star series on wrongful convictions.
He was a married father of three with a job and no previous criminal convictions before he went to jail. While he was in prison, his family lived in shelters, according to the lawsuit.
Although Cooper, of Country Club Hills, Ill., was released in 2006 after a sentence modification, he still left prison as a convicted armed robber. Cooper said he struggled to overcome the stigma of the felony conviction.
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He filed for a pardon in 2011, but it wasn't until Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb took office that Cooper received a pardon.
Holcomb said he was "very much at peace pardoning him," adding that "a victim, an informant, even the deputy prosecutor who convicted Mr. Cooper on that first crime, all have stated support or no objection to a pardon.”
Cooper retains a felony battery conviction for an incident while he was in jail on the robbery charge. He said he was defending himself against another inmate.
Then-governor Mike Pence had declined to pardon Cooper before leaving office, insisting that he exhaust his legal options despite resounding evidence of his innocence. Pence was governor of Indiana from 2013 until he became vice president in 2017.
Contributing: Tony Cook, Chelsea Schneider and Kaitlin L. Lange, The Indianapolis Star; The Associated Press. Follow Mark Alesia on Twitter: @markalesia