Today, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to approve a $14 million settlement to Alexander Torres, 45, in his wrongful conviction lawsuit against the LA County Sheriff’s Department and the individual officers he says framed him for murder, costing him 20 years in prison.
Mr. Torres was only 20 years old when he was arrested for the murder of Martin “Casper” Guitron, who was shot to death on December 31, 2000. No physical evidence ever connected Mr. Torres to the crime, who had an alibi for the time of the shooting. But, according to his lawsuit, LA Sheriff’s Department detectives fabricated evidence against him, coerced phony eyewitness testimony, and suppressed exculpatory evidence, including their own investigation notes that would have contradicted testimony they gave at trial.
Following a jury trial where the false evidence was testified to by the officers under oath, Torres was convicted of second-degree murder. He was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison.
In October 2021, more than twenty years after his arrest, Mr. Torres’s conviction was vacated by the Superior Court of California, Los Angeles County, and in April 2022, he was found factually innocent of murder by the Superior Court of California, Los Angeles County. In June 2022, at a press conference following his exoneration, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón personally apologized to Torres for his wrongful conviction.
Mr. Torres filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in October of 2022. Today, LA County settled that lawsuit for $14 million.
Mr. Torres is represented by attorneys Elizabeth Wang and Steve Art.
Read more about Mr. Torres’s case and the settlement in the Los Angeles Times.
