A victim of a false arrest who was wrongly jailed for 26 years has filed a lawsuit against Miami-Dade County and the police, claiming that they falsified records and performed other illegal actions.
Luis Diaz Martinez, now 69, was released from prison in March 2005 after DNA evidence proved that he was not the attacker in two of the many rapes he was convicted of, which cast doubt on the rest of his convictions.
Wrongfully Jailed for 26 Years
“They railroaded this man and took 26 years of his life. They took away from him any chance of having a family, any chance for a career, and any chance he had at happiness,” said Marvin Kurzban, Diaz’s attorney. “We are here to right that wrong.”
Diaz was serving a life sentence in jail when lawyers from the nonprofit organization, the Innocence Project, which pushes for DNA exoneration, took up his fight.
“They took away my liberty, but always in my heart and in my mind, I always knew that I was innocent,” said Diaz.
Kurzban said he requested that officials acknowledged that Diaz’s rights were violated, but got no response.
The Suit
The lawsuit claims that police officers made a false arrest using fabricated evidence and pressured witnesses to Identify Diaz as their assailant. This caused him ongoing extreme emotional pain.
The suit seeks unspecified damages.
The Wrongful Convictions
Diaz was convicted based on identifications made by eight victims despite the fact that several of them had earlier said that the perpetrator was a much taller Hispanic man who spoke English. Diaz, a recent political refugee from Cuba, spoke little to no English at the time, and he smelled like onions because he worked as a fry cook, which no witness mentioned.
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