Oneida man who spent nearly 18 years in prison sues Milwaukee for wrongful conviction
Attorneys for an Oneida Nation man whose homicide conviction was overturned filed a lawsuit on Monday against the city of Milwaukee and former members of the Milwaukee Police Department alleging that police conspired to "frame" him for murder.
Danny Wilber, a 44-year-old citizen of the Oneida Nation, was convicted in the 2004 murder of David Diaz in Milwaukee and was incarcerated for nearly 18 years, during which time he maintained his innocence.
Wilber was released in late 2021 after a U.S. appeals court overturned his conviction over a shackling issue, and judges noted weaknesses in the evidence against him.
Wilber and his attorneys from the Chicago-based People’s Law Office filed the civil rights lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin alleging that police fabricated evidence against him, concealed evidence of his innocence and ignored other potential suspects.
Their complaint demands unspecified financial compensation against the city and nine former police officers involved in Wilber’s case.
“I firmly believe that what the (Milwaukee Police Department) did to me was deliberate, systematic and meticulously orchestrated to frame and wrongfully convict an obviously innocent man,” Wilber said in a statement. “I hope that this case will bring some measure of law enforcement accountability when it comes to the MPD’s bringing of false charges and obtaining wrongful convictions of Black and Indigenous people in Milwaukee.”
Neither the Milwaukee Police Department nor the City Attorney's Office immediately returned messages with a request for comment.
Wilber was arrested in February 2004 for the Jan. 31, 2004 homicide of Diaz.
Diaz, who was 23 at the time, was shot once in the back of the head and killed in his home in Milwaukee's south side during an after-hours party that Wilber and other partygoers were at.
Partygoers said Wilber was acting belligerently and fighting with people immediately before the shooting, but no eyewitness told the jury they actually saw Wilber shoot Diaz.
In its 2021 opinion overturning his conviction, the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals noted the physical evidence against Wilber “posed some difficulties” for the prosecution.
For example, the position of Diaz’s body and of bullet fragments found at the scene suggested the shooter had been standing behind him. However, Wilber was in front of him at the time of the shooting.
One witness told jurors he saw Wilber with a semi-automatic firearm immediately after the shooting, but a firearms examiner said Diaz had been shot with a revolver.
Wilber's appellate attorneys had argued that it was impossible for Wilber to have been the shooter because of the physical evidence.
At trial, there were many inconsistencies in eyewitnesses' testimony. Several eyewitnesses gave testimony at trial that contradicted what police reported the witnesses told them during questioning.
Wilber's lawsuit alleges that police officers coerced witnesses to give false statements and fabricated parts of some witnesses' statements.
The lawsuit alleges that the only eyewitness who testified to have seen Wilber with a gun at the party has since recanted.
That witness had also testified at trial to seeing another partygoer besides Wilber at the party with a gun.
Wilber's attorneys also allege that the city of Milwaukee is at fault for failing to "train, supervise, monitor and discipline" Milwaukee police officers involved in misconduct. It also alleges that Milwaukee did not track or identify officers repeatedly accused of misconduct.
Frank Vaisvilas is a former Report for America corps member who covers Native American issues in Wisconsin based at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Contact him at fvaisvilas@gannett.com or 815-260-2262. Follow him on Twitter at @vaisvilas_frank.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Oneida man sues Milwaukee for alleged wrongful imprisonment
