NEW ORLEANS — Two men are suing the city of New Orleans after they were wrongly convicted decades ago.
New Orleans, Len Davis, Sammie Williams, Wayne Tamborella, Dwight Deal, Anthony Small, Ross J.J. Mocklin, Kenneth Harris, David Benelli, Mitchell Dussett, unknown insurance companies and Jason Roger Williams were all named as defendants in the suit.
In August 1994, three young Black teenagers, Kunta Gable, Sidney Hill and Bernell Juluke, were wrongly accused of a crime in New Orleans due to misconduct within the city's police department, according to a complaint filed Oct. 16 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.
Gable and Hill claim the New Orleans Police Department allowed officers to act without accountability. They claim two officers, Davis and Williams, framed the teenagers, and despite their subsequent arrest and conviction, the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office, under Harry Connick, continued the false prosecution.
For nearly 30 years, the teenagers were imprisoned at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, also known as Angola, with no attempts to review their cases, despite the involvement of alleged corrupt officers.
In 2022, after decades of false incarceration, the men were finally exonerated.
The plaintiffs claim the case illustrates the failure of leadership within the NOPD, the District Attorney’s Office and the broader criminal justice system in New Orleans.
The plaintiffs are seeking compensatory and punitive damages. They are represented by John N. Adcock of John Adcock Law LLC in New Orleans.
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana case number: 2:23-cv-06203