Louisiana Prisoner Alleges Prosecutor Got Death Verdict By Coercing Witness, Presenting Fabricated Testimony

Michael Wearry, a Louisiana pris­on­er whose con­vic­tion and death sen­tence were over­turned by the U.S Supreme Court in 2016 because pros­e­cu­tors with­held excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence, has filed suit against Livingston Parish District Attorney Scott Perriloux (pic­tured) and for­mer Sheriff’s Deputy Marlon Kearney Foster based upon new evi­dence that they delib­er­ate­ly fab­ri­cat­ed tes­ti­mo­ny against him. Wearry’s com­plaint charges that the Louisiana offi­cials ​“know­ing­ly and delib­er­ate­ly fab­ri­cat­ed” tes­ti­mo­ny from a trou­bled ado­les­cent, Jeffery Ashton and coerced Ashton ​“to false­ly impli­cate Wearry in the homi­cide of Eric Walber.” 

The law­suit says Wearry first learned that Perriloux and Foster had fab­ri­cat­ed Ashton’s tes­ti­mo­ny dur­ing the course of prepar­ing for Wearry’s re-tri­al, when his defense team locat­ed and inter­viewed Ashton and ​“Ashton told Wearry’s lawyers about the fal­si­fi­ca­tion of his witness accounts.” 

Wearry was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 2002, although no phys­i­cal evi­dence linked him to the mur­der. His ali­bi wit­ness­es tes­ti­fied that he was at wed­ding recep­tion 40 miles away in Baton Rouge at the time of the murder. 

The U.S. Supreme Court has described the case against Wearry as ​“a house of cards.” The pros­e­cu­tion case relied heav­i­ly on the tes­ti­mo­ny of Sam Scott, a jail­house infor­mant, whose sto­ry changed so dra­mat­i­cal­ly over the course of four dif­fer­ent state­ments that, accord­ing to the Supreme Court, by the time of tri­al ​“his sto­ry bore lit­tle resem­blance to his original account.” 

Police records that pros­e­cu­tors with­held from the defense at tri­al revealed that Scott had may have had a per­son­al vendet­ta against Wearry, hav­ing told anoth­er pris­on­er he want­ed to ​“make sure [Wearry] gets the nee­dle cause he jacked over me.” Prosecutors also failed to dis­close that they had offered anoth­er wit­ness a reduced sen­tence for an unre­lat­ed con­vic­tion in exchange for his tes­ti­mo­ny against Wearry, and then lied to the jury that the wit­ness had ​“no deal on the table.” 

Wearry’s law­suit con­cerns alle­ga­tions of mis­con­duct involv­ing the tes­ti­mo­ny of Jeffrey Ashton, who was ten years old at the time of the mur­der and four­teen when he tes­ti­fied at Wearry’s tri­al that he had seen Wearry throw the vic­tim’s cologne bot­tle into a ditch and get into the vic­tim’s car. He now says he was attend­ing a fes­ti­val on the night of the mur­der and had nev­er seen Wearry before the trial. 

“Ashton was sub­ject to juve­nile court pro­ceed­ings at the time, and was vul­ner­a­ble to intim­i­da­tion by author­i­ties such as Perrilloux and Foster,” the law­suit says. In an affi­davit, Ashton says he was ​“forced” to pro­vide false tes­ti­mo­ny. ​“I went along with it because I was just ten years old. I was scared,” he said. 

Jim Craig, Wearry’s attor­ney, called the alleged mis­con­duct ​“very dis­turb­ing,” and said, “[t]he abuse of pow­er by District Attorney Perrilloux and Mr. Foster is an out­rage that should dis­turb any­one who believes in jus­tice.” He added that he believes the case may have impli­ca­tions for oth­er cas­es han­dled by Perriloux, say­ing, ​“I think the integri­ty of this and oth­er cas­es in that dis­trict is at stake and we expect this to be a very hard fought case. We are con­fi­dent that what we have filed is cor­rect and truthful.” 

District Attorney Perrilloux called the alle­ga­tions that he coerced tes­ti­mo­ny from Ashton ​“ridicu­lous.”