Holmes was sentenced to 400 years in prison after being framed for armed robbery through a tainted identification process, new lawsuit alleges.
FORT LAUDERDALE – Today, attorneys for Sydney Holmes filed a federal lawsuit on his behalf, alleging that Broward County Sheriff’s Department officers framed him for armed robbery and cost him more than 33 years of his life.
On June 18, 1988, 20-year-old Vincent Wright and 17-year-old Anissia Johnson were robbed at gunpoint by three men outside a OneStop convenience store in Fort Lauderdale. Earlier that same day, Vincent’s brother Milton had been the victim of an attempted robbery by four men nearby.
At the time of the robbery, Sidney Holmes, then 22, was celebrating Father’s Day at his parents’ home, an alibi that was later testified to by four witnesses. Completely innocent, he knew nothing about the robberies, but he had the bad luck to be driving a brown Oldsmobile Cutlass—the best-selling car in America at the time—a few weeks later, and it superficially resembled the car Milton Wright had vaguely described from his attempted robbery.
On this basis, Broward County sheriff’s detectives asked Mr. Holmes to come in, which Mr. Holmes did voluntarily, confident he would be eliminated from their inquiries.
Instead, the complaint alleges, sheriff’s detectives seized on Mr. Holmes as one of the robbers, and began fabricating a case against him. After Wright failed to identify Mr. Holmes from a photo lineup, one of the detectives—named as a defendant in the lawsuit—went to Mr. Holmes’ home and took a new picture of him, and used this photo in a second lineup. Mr. Holmes was the only person who was in both photo arrays, and this time Wright identified him as one of his robbers.
Experts on eyewitness testimony would later review Mr. Holmes’ case and conclude there were multiple factors which caused this identification to be tainted. This included the use of suggestive photographs of Mr. Holmes, the time lapse between the crime and the identification, and the fact that he was the only person featured in multiple arrays.
Despite the lack of evidence, his alibi, and the fact that Mr. Holmes did not resemble the witnesses’ initial descriptions, a jury convicted Mr. Holmes in April 1989. Because he refused to name his alleged partners—which would have been an impossibility, since Mr. Holmes was innocent—the prosecution recommended an extraordinary sentence of 825 years. The judge thought this was “a little bit much,” and sentenced Homes to 400 years in prison instead.
Mr. Holmes never gave up on proving his innocence. Nearly 30 years later, after failed motions to appeal, Mr. Holmes successfully petitioned the newly formed Conviction Review Unit (CRU) of the Broward County State Attorney’s Office to review his case. The CRU concluded that the “eyewitness identification of Holmes was scientifically unreliable,” and that “it is highly likely he is factually innocent.” In March 2023, Mr. Holmes’ conviction was vacated, charges were dropped, and he was released from prison—more than 33 years after he had gone in.
Today’s lawsuit asks a jury to decide and provide damages for twelve different counts of violations of Mr. Holmes’ rights, including violation of due process, malicious prosecution, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and conspiracy. It names as defendants the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, detectives Kenneth Smith and Robert Campbell, and the estate of the late detective Robert Freshwaters.
“No one can give Mr. Holmes back the decades he lost, or undo the harm he and his family endured,” says attorney Maria Makar of Loevy + Loevy. “But Broward County must be held accountable for the failures that allowed these detectives to frame our client.”
Mr. Holmes is represented by attorneys Jon Loevy and Maria Makar of Loevy + Loevy, as well as Dominique Russo of Russo Law & Advocacy, PLLC.
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For a copy of the complaint in this case, click here.
