Wrongfully imprisoned Connecticut man seeks $8.5 million in compensation

By Richard Weizel

MILFORD, Conn. (Reuters) - Connecticut officials on Thursday said they would not fight a wrongly imprisoned man's claim for $8.5 million in compensation after he spent two decades behind bars for a murder that he was later cleared of.

Lawyers for Miguel Roman, who was sentenced to 60 years in prison after being convicted of the 1988 killing of a 17-year-old girl, submitted their claim this week under a state law that allows wrongly imprisoned people to apply for compensation.

"There is no dispute that Mr. Roman was wrongfully incarcerated and is now, therefore, entitled to compensation," said Perry Zinn Rowthorn, the state's deputy attorney general, in a letter to Claims Commissioner J. Paul Vance, Jr. "We do not intend to present evidence to oppose an award within the range that he requests."

Roman, now 58, was released six years ago after DNA tests showed another man was responsible for the teen's killing. That man is now serving a 60-year sentence.

The letter also noted the compensation Roman is seeking "does not substantially deviate" from the $6 million awarded in January to Kenneth Ireland, the first man to file a claim for damages under the law.

Ireland, imprisoned at age 18 for the 1986 rape and murder of a Connecticut woman, was freed in 2009 after serving 21 years of a 50-year sentence when DNA tests proved another man committed the crime.

(Editing by Scott Malone and Lisa Lambert)