After doing nearly 28 years for a crime he didn’t commit, Bernard Young says he’s not angry or bitter – though he’s still got a score to settle with the City of Detroit and the police officer he claims wronged him.
On Wednesday, the 59-year-old man whose hair turned gray in the prison system sued the City of Detroit and Sgt. Shelley Foy, claiming they are both responsible for letting him serve 27 years and 179 days in prison for molestation when they knew another man had committed the crime.
Young’s lawsuit alleges that Foy knew early on that Young’s two young accusers had recanted their story and outed their real abuser — their mother’s boyfriend — but she withheld this information from Young and his lawyers and cost him decades of freedom.
“Mr. Young was forced to endure close to three decades of psychological torture while physically incarcerated for a crime he did not commit,” Young’s lawyer, Solomon Radner, told the Free Press. “Had he had a fair trial, he would have remained free. Though monetary damages cannot return his lost time to him, it can compensate him to the extent possible and act as a deterrent to law enforcement officials considering in engaging in similar unlawful violations of people’s civil liberties.”
Hours before the lawsuit was filed, just before the judge dismissed his case, Young stressed that he holds no ill will toward anyone.
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