Thursday, July 26, 2007

Judge orders fed government to pay $101M to men wrongly imprisoned after FBI withheld evidence

Excerpts from Sign On San Diego dot com

A federal judge Thursday ordered the government to pay more than $101 million in the case of four men who spent decades in prison for a 1965 murder they didn't commit after the FBI withheld evidence of their innocence.

The judge called the government's defense that the FBI had no duty to get involved because it was a state case “absurd.”

The government argued that federal authorities had no duty to share information with state officials who prosecuted Limone, Salvati, Henry Tameleo and Louis Greco. Federal authorities cannot be held responsible for the results of a state prosecution, a Justice Department lawyer argued.

The wrongful convictions occurred because the FBI granted its informants license to murder and to cover-up those murders by framing innocent men under the illusion that the informants were useful in bringing down the Mafia. Surely there is a better way to fight crime . . .

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