PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "His attorneys allege that officials knew the hair analysis used to secure Perrot's conviction was "junk science" but pressed forward anyway."
STORY: "Man imprisoned for decades sues police, FBI after release," by Associated Press reporter Alanna Durkin Richer, published by The Bradenton Herald on January 26, 2018.
PHOTO CAPTION: "On Thursday, Jan. 25, 2018, Perrot, who spent three decades in prison for a rape he said he did not commit, sued law enforcement officers and agencies he alleges conspired to frame him."
GIST: "A Massachusetts man who spent more than three decades in prison for a rape he says he didn't commit has filed a federal lawsuit accusing law enforcement officials of conspiring to frame him by planting phony evidence and coercing false statements that were used against him. George Perrot was 17 in 1985 when he was arrested and charged with raping a 78-year-old Mary Prekop in Springfield, Massachusetts. Perrot, whose conviction was based in part on a single strand of hair, was released from prison in 2016 after a judge said he's "reasonably sure" Perrot is innocent and found an FBI agent's testimony about microscopic hair evidence to be flawed. Perrot's attorneys say in the lawsuit filed Thursday that law enforcement officers beat and threatened to kill Perrot after his arrest, planted gloves and the hair at the crime scene and withheld evidence that could have helped him. His attorneys allege that officials knew the hair analysis used to secure Perrot's conviction was "junk science" but pressed forward anyway. "Rather than do the work necessary to identify the perpetrator, the defendants, individually and jointly, short-circuited the investigatory process and wrongfully targeted plaintiff in an effort to simply close the case," his attorneys say in the lawsuit against Springfield, several city police officers, a prosecutor and FBI agents. Ed Pikula, Springfield city solicitor, said Friday that he had not yet reviewed the lawsuit and could not comment. Representatives for the FBI and Hampden district attorney's office didn't immediately respond to messages. The U.S. Justice Department flagged Perrot's case in 2014 as one of hundreds that involved erroneous statements from FBI agents about hair analysis. The FBI now acknowledges the science is not conclusive and uses it only in conjunction with DNA testing. Prosecutors dismissed charges against Perrot in October, saying "the interests and administration of justice are best served by the termination of prosecution of this matter." Prekop repeatedly said the man who beat and raped her didn't have any facial hair. On the night of the attack, Nov. 30, 1985, Perrot had a beard and a mustache. When Prekop was shown Perrot's lineup photo during his trial and was asked if he was her attacker, she replied, "How can I say it when this man has a mustache and a beard?" Perrot, who had been sentenced to life in prison, is seeking unspecified damages."
The entire story can be read at:
http://www.bradenton.com/news/nation-world/national/article196798129.html
Read the National Registry of Exonerations entry by Maurice Possley at the link below:
https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=5219
"On October 11, 2107, more than 30 years after 17-year-old George
Perrot was sent to prison for life for the sexual assault of a
78-year-old woman in Springfield, Massachusetts, he was exonerated
because the FBI hair analysis used to convict him was scientifically
flawed. Perrot's long legal battle ended when Hampden
County prosecutors dismissed the charges against him. Perrot, who had
been granted a new trial and released on bond in 2016 based on the
flawed FBI hair testimony, was convicted initially in 1987 and again at a
retrial in 1992, even though the victim insisted that her attacker was
clean-shaven and Perrot had a mustache and beard. Perrot
became a suspect a week after the sexual assault occurred. On the night
of December 6, 1985, after a night spent ingesting drugs and alcohol, he
broke into the home of Joseph McNabb in Springfield. When
Perrot realized McNabb and his wife were home, he fled. He then stole a
woman’s purse outside a Denny’s restaurant and went to the nearby home
of his sister. Police, alerted by McNabb, found him there shortly
thereafter and arrested him. The police were already
investigating Perrot as a suspect in several break-ins in the
neighborhood—he had a juvenile record of arrests that included breaking
into homes. Beginning at about 4:30 a.m., detectives
interrogated him over the course of the next 12 hours. Perrot was
questioned specifically about two break-ins that occurred about an hour
apart on November 30, 1985. In the first incident,
68-year-old Emily Lichwala reported that she was awakened at 3 a.m. by
the sound of someone trying to break into her kitchen through a locked
door. She also heard glass shatter near a breezeway door. Lichwala ran
outside but did not encounter the intruder. She later discovered her
purse had been taken. An hour later and not far away,
78-year-old Mary Prekop was awakened by her dog barking. She went to the
kitchen and opened the door, but didn’t see or hear anything. She sat
in her living room for a few minutes and then went back to bed, taking a
stick with her for protection. Not long after, she heard
someone enter the house. She went to the kitchen where an intruder
confronted her and pushed her back into her bedroom. She said he struck
her, sexually assaulted her on the floor, and left with her purse. She
said the attacker was clean-shaven, with dark wavy hair, and was wearing
a blue jacket, dark pants, and white sneakers. Perrot
signed a statement admitting to the purse snatching and the McNabb
break-in on December 6, but initially denied involvement in the Lichwala
and Prekop attacks. Later, at 3 p.m., Perrot signed a
statement admitting to breaking into the Lichwala and Prekop homes, but
denied sexually assaulting Prekop. Detectives said that while giving his
statement, Perrot became emotional, wept, and asked for a gun to commit
suicide. He was placed on suicide watch. At 4:30 p.m.,
Lichwala, Prekop, McNabb, and another woman, Mae Marchand, whose home
also was broken into, came to the police station and viewed a lineup
that included Perrot and several police officers acting as fillers.
Perrot’s hair was long and curly and he had a mustache and a goatee.
Prekop, Lichwala, and Marchand were unable to identify Perrot. Only
McNabb identified Perrot. In December 1987, Perrot went to
trial in Hampden County Superior Court. By that time, he had been
convicted of the McNabb break-in and was sentenced to 10 to 12 years in
prison. Prosecutor Francis Bloom, in his opening
statement, told the jury that FBI crime lab hair analyst Wayne Oakes
would testify that a head hair found in Prekop’s bedroom was
“absolutely” not Prekop’s and had 15 to 25 characteristics that were
“identical to every characteristic of the head hair” from Perrot. Bloom
also said that FBI crime lab analyst William Eubanks would testify that
blood on a pair of gloves found in Prekop’s bedroom was consistent with
Perrot’s blood, and that “every genetic marker” in blood on the bed
sheet from Prekop’s bedroom was consistent with Perrot’s blood. Prekop
was the first witness. She testified that she was assaulted on the
floor, not on the bed. She said the sheet had an old bloodstain from
years earlier when an ill relative stayed in the bed. Prekop also
testified that her attacker was clean-shaven. Lichwala testified and said she never saw the person who broke into her home. Springfield
detective Thomas Jarvis testified that Perrot confessed to the
break-ins at the Prekop and Lichwala residences. The detective said
Perrot denied sexually assaulting Prekop. Jarvis also told the jury that
when arrested, Perrot had a mustache and a beard. Eubanks
testified that he analyzed two bloodstains on the bed sheet. He said he
was unable to determine a blood type, but that on the larger stain, he
identified four genetic markers. Eubanks said that Perrot’s blood had
all four genetic markers. He said that the blood did not come from
Prekop and “could have come from Perrot.” Eubanks also said he found a
bloodstain on the gloves that had a genetic marker that both Prekop and
Perrot had. Eubanks testified that two of the markers were
present in 41 percent of the population who, like Perrot, was
Caucasian. He said that the third marker was present in 48 percent of
the Caucasian population, and the fourth was present in 99 percent of
the Caucasian population. Oakes testified that he had
conducted a microscopic comparison of the two recovered head hairs and
hair from Perrot. He said that he excluded Prekop as the source of the
hair. He said there were “no significant differences in any of the
microscopic characteristics” between the recovered hair and Perrot’s
hair. Oakes conceded on cross-examination that unlike
fingerprint analysis, the hair comparison could not be the basis of a
positive identification. Nevertheless, he said that he had “worked
thousands of cases involving thousands of known hair standards, so when I
do in fact associate a questioned hair with a known hair standard, in
my opinion, it forms a basis of a strong association, because very
rarely do I see known samples from two people that are so alike that I
cannot tell them apart. So it is more than just I can’t exclude him. I
feel reasonably strong about that association or I wouldn’t be
testifying to it.” The prosecution tried to introduce a
statement made by Perrot about where he discarded Lichwala’s purse. The
trial judge barred the statement, ruling that it was obtained by a
police officer who visited Perrot in jail to collect hair and blood
samples on December 10, 1985. By that time, Perrot was represented by a
lawyer and so the officer’s questioning of him without permission was
improper. The judge, however, allowed the prosecution to introduce the
purse, which had been located after Perrot told them where to find it.
The judge ruled that it would have been discovered eventually even if
Perrot had not disclosed its location. Perrot testified
that he did not remember signing the statement admitting to the Prekop
and Lichwala break-ins. He denied that he had admitted committing those
crimes. He also testified that detectives beat him during his
interrogation. On December 14, 1987, the jury convicted
Perrot of aggravated rape, burglary and assault in a dwelling, unarmed
robbery, and indecent assault and battery. He was sentenced to life in
prison. On June 4, 1990, the Massachusetts Supreme
Judicial Court set aside the convictions and ordered a new trial. The
court ruled that Lichwala’s purse should not have been allowed into
evidence. Prior to a retrial, a different prosecutor,
Brett Vottero, was assigned to handle the case. At that time, he
discovered a “confession” that purported to be signed by Perrot in which
he implicated two of his friends in a break-in at the home of Mae
Marchand. Prosecutor Francis Bloom had prepared the confession after
Marchand had been unable to identify Perrot in the lineup in December
1987. Bloom had forged Perrot’s signature on the confession and then
used it to try to bluff Perrot’s friends into confessing that they
committed the Marchand break-in. The gambit failed—the friends were not
charged—and the Massachusetts State Bar later reprimanded Bloom for the
forgery. The defense filed a motion to dismiss the charges based on prosecutorial misconduct. That motion was denied. On January 9, 1992, Perrot was convicted again of the same charges. He was sentenced to life in prison. The Appeals Court of Massachusetts upheld his conviction and sentence in 1995. In
2001, Perrot filed a motion for a new trial claiming that Vottero, the
prosecutor at his second trial, had made an improper closing argument.
In September 2001, the motion was granted and Perrot’s convictions and
sentence were vacated. The judge ruled that the prosecutor made improper
comments about the presumption of innocence and also improperly vouched
for the credibility of the FBI agents. The prosecution
appealed. In May 2003, the Appeals Court of Massachusetts reversed the
lower court ruling, ruling that the comments had not caused a
miscarriage of justice. The court reinstated Perrot’s convictions and
life sentence. Acting without a lawyer, Perrot filed additional motions for new trial in 2005 and 2006, but was unsuccessful. In
2012, the FBI began an audit of the cases in which its hair microscopy
examiners had testified. The FBI determined that some examiners had
“exceeded the limits of science by overstating the conclusions that may
appropriately be drawn from a positive association between evidentiary
hair and a known hair sample.” After reviewing Oakes’s testimony in Perrot’s 1992 trial, the FBI concluded that Oakes made erroneous statements. By
that time, the law firm of Ropes & Gray was reviewing Perrot’s
case. The firm’s review of Perrot’s case stemmed from its involvement in
the West Memphis Three case. After those three defendants were released
in 2011, the firm began receiving letters from inmates across the
country asking for help. One letter came from Sherrie Frisone, a legal
researcher at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at
Brandeis University, who had become familiar with Perrot’s case. Prompted
by the letter, the firm sought DNA testing in the case, but the
evidence was too degraded to be tested. The lawyers then shifted their
focus to the hair microscopy issue and enlisted the Innocence Project
and the Massachusetts Committee for Public Services Counsel Innocence
Program. In 2014, the defense filed a motion for new trial
contending that Oakes had given false and misleading hair analysis
testimony. They filed a supplemental petition after receiving the
laboratory notes from William Eubanks’s blood analysis. The notes showed
that contrary to his trial testimony, Eubanks had performed a blood
typing test on the bed sheet and that this test may have resulted in a
weak blood Type A-antigen response. Because Perrot had blood type O, he
could not be the source of blood with Type-A antigen. Moreover, the
notes showed that Eubanks did not test against all known enzymes and
blood markers in Perrot’s blood. The laboratory notes had never been
disclosed to Perrot’s defense lawyers. In January 2016,
based on a two-day hearing involving seven witnesses and 46 exhibits,
Superior Court Judge Robert Kane vacated Perrot’s convictions relating
to the break-in and sexual assault of Prekop. Kane said
that the hair analysis evidence at the 1992 trial “in numerous and
material respects exceeded the foundational science.” Kane ruled that on
seven occasions, Oakes’s testimony overstated the science. Kane
left undisturbed Perrot’s conviction for the burglary of Lichwala’s
home because there was no challenge to the evidence supporting that
conviction and police said he admitted to breaking into that home. On
February 10, 2016, Perrot was released from prison pending a third
trial. The prosecution appealed Judge Kane’s ruling. On October 11,
2017, while the appeal was still pending, the prosecution filed a motion
to dismiss the charges, saying that “the interests and administration
of justice are best served by the termination of prosecution of this
matter.” In January 2019, Perrot filed a federal civil rights lawsuit seeking damages."
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/c
