US man wrongly jailed for 25 years sues state for USD 25 mln

A man in the US who was wrongly locked up in prison for nearly 25 years has sued the state for USD 25 million, a million each for the years he spent behind bars.
Derrick Deacon who spent almost a quarter-century behind bars for a crime he did not commit, has hit the state with the USD 25 million lawsuit and hopes it will teach authorities a lesson about bending the rules to gain a conviction.
"These people have to pay for every day they made me suffer behind the wall for no reason," Deacon, 58, who was freed last year by new evidence, told The New York Post.

Deacon, from Brooklyn, was convicted of murder on December 21, 1989, in the fatal shooting that April of Anthony Wynn, 16.
He was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
Deacon was granted a new trial on June 20, 2012, after a Jamaican said a fellow gang member killed Wynn.

Also, a woman who took the stand at Deacon's trial recanted her testimony, saying police or district attorney investigators had coached and even threatened her.
Colleen Campbell had told investigators Deacon was not the man she saw fleeing in a stairwell after the shooting, but she was coached to give vague testimony at the trial with authorities threatening to take her children if she did not cooperate, the suit states.

"(Police) told Campbell that she was in trouble for leaving the children unattended and that the children would be taken away unless she accompanied them to the District Attorney's Office," the suit filed by Deacon's defense attorney Glenn Garber said.
A Brooklyn Supreme Court jury in November deliberated just nine minutes before acquitting Deacon.