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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowTwo Indiana men recently exonerated by DNA evidence in a gang rape case are suing over their wrongful convictions.
Roosevelt Glenn and Darryl Pinkins were convicted in 1993 and 1991, respectively, of a 1989 rape in Hammond.
Glenn was released on parole in 2009 and Pinkins was released in 2016. New DNA tests exonerated Glenn in 2016 and Pinkins last year. The men spent more than 40 years in prison combined.
Glenn and Pinkins filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against Hammond, officers of the city’s police department and Indiana State Police.
The lawsuit alleges the men were framed for the crime and that a Hammond police lieutenant, a detective and six other officers manipulated witnesses, fabricated evidence and withheld exculpatory evidence. The department failed to properly train and supervise rape case investigations and the process of suspect identification, the suit said.
The suit also alleges ISP crime lab experts fabricated reports, ignored exculpatory evidence and offered false testimony.
“They were family men,” said Jon Loevy, an attorney with Loevy & Loevy, the Chicago firm representing Glenn and Pinkins. “One day they were going to work, and then they were basically kidnapped from their lives, they’re being accused of this terrible rape they had absolutely nothing to do with, they have no idea what the police are even talking about.”
A woman told authorities her vehicle was rear-ended at a red light in December 1989. When she got out to inspect the damage, five men dragged her into another car, took her to a remote area in Gary and sexually assaulted her, she said.
The Hammond Police Department and ISP said Wednesday they haven’t been served the lawsuit and declined to comment.
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