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\nLouisville Metro Government has agreed to pay nearly $4 million to a man who sued the city and Louisville police after spending years in prison for a double shooting more than three decades ago.<\/p>\n
\nLouisville Metro Government has agreed to pay nearly $4 million to a man who sued the city and Louisville police after spending years in prison for a double shooting more than three decades ago.<\/p>\n
Keith West\u2019s attorney, Elliot Slosar, confirmed Friday the city reached a $3.8 million settlement in August. West had filed suit against former Louisville Police Detective Mark Handy, who pleaded guilty in 2021 to tampering with physical evidence in West\u2019s two 1997 manslaughter convictions.<\/p>\n
West served about seven years in prison and \u201clost decades of his life due to the egregious misconduct of former Detective Mark Handy and others in the Louisville Police Department,\u201d according to his suit.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit argued that Handy taped over recordings of two eyewitness statements and coerced them into specific testimony prior to trial.<\/p>\n
Handy was the lead investigator in the case but never searched the car where the shooting happened. West\u2019s attorneys later found evidence inside the vehicle that they argued supported his self-defense claims.<\/p>\n
The case dates back to 1992, when West shot and killed Gerald White and Kevin Harraway in west Louisville. West claimed he killed the men in self-defense because they were planning to rape him.<\/p>\n
West was convicted of two counts of murder in 1995, but those convictions were later overturned.<\/p>\n
Facing another trial and possible conviction, West took an Alford plea to two counts of manslaughter in 1997, meaning he maintained his innocence but acknowledged there was enough evidence for a jury to convict him.<\/p>\n
West was pardoned by former Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin in 2019. He filed his lawsuit that same year.<\/p>\n
In 2021, Handy was sentenced to a year behind bars for tampering with evidence in West\u2019s case and perjury in a separate case involving Edwin Chandler. Handy was released after 17 days to serve the rest of his sentence at home.<\/p>\n
Chandler spent nine years in prison for a murder he did not commit before being exonerated in 2012. Louisville Metro Government later paid him $8.5 million in a settlement.<\/p>\n
In 2023, the city agreed to pay another $20.5 million to Jeffrey Clark and Keith Hardin, who were convicted in the 1995 murder of Rhonda Sue Warford in Meade County. Handy played a central role in the investigation, which involved allegations of \u201csatanic rituals.\u201d<\/p>\n
Including West\u2019s settlement, the city has now paid more than $30 million to settle lawsuits stemming from wrongful convictions and botched investigations involving Handy.
\nSource: WDRB+WAVE<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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