Man Exonerated in 1998 California Murder Case Files Lawsuit
October 2, 2019
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A man who spent two decades in prison after being wrongly convicted of murdering his lover filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday accusing Southern California sheriff’s investigators of manufacturing a case against him. Horace Roberts, 61, is suing Riverside County and officers from its Sheriff’s Department, alleging they failed to turn over key evidence to prosecutors. Roberts was exonerated and freed last year after DNA testing of crime scene evidence led to the arrests of Googie Harris and Joaquin Leal in the 1998 strangling of Terry Cheek. Harris was Cheek’s estranged husband and Leal is the nephew