On Friday, a federal jury in Cincinnati awarded David Ayers a $13.2 million judgment against six Cleveland police officers for sending him to prison for a crime he didn’t commit. A jury convicted Ayers of beating Dorothy Brown, 76, to death on December 17, 1999.
In 1999, Ayres worked security in Brown’s apartment building. A friend of the victim told Ayers that she had found Brown’s dead body. Although police found no evidence to connect Ayres to the murder, they arrested him on March 14, 2000.
Lead detectives Michael Cipo and Denise Kovach said Ayres confessed to killing Brown. A cellmate also testified that Ayres confessed to the crime.
Ayres said he never confessed to killing Brown to the lead detectives or anyone else. He received another trial after an Appeals court ruled the cellmate’s testimony was unreliable and inconsistent.
The Prosecutor’s office sent pubic hairs, rape kit and a bloody towel from the crime scene to the crime lab for DNA testing. The results excluded Ayres.
Charges against Ayres were dropped and he left prison a free man in 2011.
More information about this story can be found at WLWT.com and the Innocence Project.
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