A man who was imprisoned for 20 years over a murder he didn’t commit is suing Los Angeles County and the Sheriff’s Department for withholding evidence that would prove his innocence.
Alexander Torres, 40, was exonerated with the help of the Innocence Project after evidence surfaced in 2006 that pointed to another person who was responsible for shooting a rival gang member in the suburban city of Paramount.
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On Dec. 31, 2000, Martin Guitron was shot to death by a man belonging to another gang resembling Torres who jumped out of a car. Torres, who was a gang member at the time, got into a fight with Guitron after a car belonging to Torres’s mother was vandalized, Fox11 News reported.
Detectives served a search warrant on Torres’s home the following month, using a battering ram to break down the door. The occupants were rounded up, including a 15-month-old toddler, and taken to a Sheriff’s Department station. Torres was interrogated about his immigration status and told that his mother could be deported if he did not cooperate, according to Torres’s attorney.
No physical evidence connected Torres to the crime, but he was convicted of second-degree murder with the use of a gun and sentenced to 40 years to life.
Five years later, a private investigator tracked down the driver of the car, who said Torres was not involved. This was in line with Torres’s statements at the time that he was home when the shooting happened.
The real killer was not named in court documents but later went on to commit a series of armed robberies and is currently in prison.
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The Innocence Project worked on the case and submitted it to the District Attorney’s Office, which petitioned a judge to set aside the conviction in April. In court papers, the DA’s Office said, “There is not a single reliable or credible piece of evidence that Torres committed the crime” and cited newly discovered evidence.
The motion was granted. Torres’s lawsuit was filed this week in federal court, alleging that the Sheriff’s Department withheld evidence and coerced witnesses to blame Torres.
