Jury Awards Woman 34M After Police Fabricated Evidence
Evidence showed woman 150 miles away when 2001 murder occurred
A federal jury in Nevada has awarded more than $34 million to a woman, Kristin (Blaise) Lobato, who was arrested at age 18, wrongly convicted twice, and served nearly 16 years in a Nevada state prison for a 2001 killing she did not commit. Lobato was 18 when she was interviewed by police without an attorney, arrested and charged with killing Duran Bailey in Las Vegas in July 2001.
The civil trial jury found Las Vegas police and two detectives, now retired, fabricated evidence during their investigation and intentionally inflicted emotional distress upon Lobato. The panel determined that Lobato should receive $34 million in compensatory damages from the department and $10,000 in punitive damages from each former detective.
No physical evidence or witnesses connected Lobato to the killing, and she maintained she never met Bailey. But police maintained she confessed in jail that she had killed a man who tried to rape her during a three-day methamphetamine binge.
Lobato was 19 when she was convicted of murder in 2002. The Nevada Supreme Court threw out that verdict and Lobato’s prison sentence in 2004 because her lawyers weren’t able to cross-examine a prosecution witness who testified that Lobato made the jailhouse confession. Lobato was tried again in 2006, convicted of manslaughter, mutilation and weapon charges, and sentenced to 13 to 45 years in prison.
She was exonerated and freed from prison in late 2017 after the Innocence Project and attorneys in Las Vegas again took her case to the state Supreme Court. Justices said evidence showed that Lobato was in her hometown of Panaca, Nevada, some 150 miles from Las Vegas when Bailey was killed.
Last October, a state court judge in Las Vegas issued a certificate declaring Lobato innocent of Bailey’s killing.
Lobato said she didn’t know if becoming a millionaire would make up for years in prison, adding that she had “no idea what the rest of my life is going to look like. “It’s been an uphill battle with many, many obstacles,” she said. “And I’m happy that it’s all finally finished.”
You can read more about Lobato's fight to exonerate herself on her page at the Innocence Project.
