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A little over a year after his exoneration, Leon Benson is now suing the City of Indianapolis and five police officers, alleging that they framed him for murder.
The lawsuit was filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana.
Benson spent 25 years at the Correctional Industrial Facility in Pendleton for the 1998 murder of Kasey Schoen. His 61-year sentence ended after a California legal team talked with Alan Jones who was the lead detective on the case. Jones provided his case file to the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office but Benson’s lawyers noticed there were discrepancies between the handwritten notes and interview transcripts.
Jones’ admission that he didn’t always provide all of his handwritten records was the key to Benson’s exoneration and he walked out of prison a free man.
Schoen’s sister, Kolleen Bunch, joins Benson in the lawsuit, and the complaint alleges the officers withheld information that led to a different suspect.
“This lawsuit seeks to hold defendants accountable for their conduct and to ensure it will never occur again,” the complaint states.
The complaint notes the damages both Benson and Bunch suffered. It calls statements made by Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Officer Columbus Ricks “reckless and outrageous” and “were designed to manipulate the victim’s family into publicly questioning the legitimacy” of the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office decision to exonerate Benson.
“While Mr. Benson lost nearly twenty-five years of freedom, Ms. Bunch has suffered an equally tragic loss: the loss of her brother, for which Defendant Ricks and the IMPD refuse to hold the true killer responsible or even investigate in good faith,” the complaint stated.
The lawsuit alleges malicious prosecution, fabricating and manipulating evidence, a denial of due process, and a failure by police superiors to prevent misconduct.
“The misconduct … was undertaken pursuant to routine practice of the Indianapolis Police Department to pursue wrongful convictions through reckless and profoundly flawed investigations, provision of fabricated and manipulated evidence and reports, and withholding exculpatory evidence,” the lawsuit says. “In this way, the municipal defendants violated Mr. Benson’s rights by maintaining policies and practices that were the moving force driving the foregoing constitutional violations.”
Ultimately, the lawsuit says the defendants’ misconduct “directly resulted in the unlawful prosecution and incarceration of Mr. Benson, thereby denying him of his liberty in violation of his constitutional rights.”
Even as the prosecutor’s office decided to seek exoneration for Benson, the lawsuit alleges, the investigating police officers still tried to defend his wrongful conviction.
“Defendants Ricks and (Eli) McAllister joined the conspiracy to defend Mr. Benson’s wrongful conviction in order to bury evidence of police misconduct, protect the IPD and the City of Indianapolis from civil litigation, and to protect other criminal prosecutions in which (another suspect) was a used a witness,” the complaint stated.
The lawsuit seeks compensatory damages, attorney fees as well as punitive damages. A jury trial has been requested.
IMPD declined to comment, noting its policy not to discuss pending litigation.
The case is Leon Benson and Kolleen Bunch v. City of Indianapolis, Alan F. Jones, Leslie Vanbuskirk, Steven Garner, Eli Mcallister and Columbus Ricks, in their individual capacities, 1:24-cv-839.
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