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Posted on 12/15/2024 10:20:46 AM PST by xxqqzz
A jury has ruled in favor of Kirstin “Blaise” Lobato, finding that two Las Vegas police detectives fabricated evidence against her in a 2001 murder.
The verdict was read Thursday afternoon following a day and a half of deliberations. When U.S. District Judge Richard Boulware announced the jury had ruled in her favor, Lobato looked to the courtroom ceiling and gasped before she began crying and hugging her attorneys.
The jury awarded Lobato $34 million in compensatory damages, plus $20,000 in punitive damages, ruling that Metropolitan Police Department Detectives Thomas Thowsen and James LaRochelle, now retired, fabricated evidence and intentionally caused Lobato emotional distress.
Lobato continued smiling as she spoke with reporters outside the courthouse, still occasionally hugging her attorneys.
“It’s been an uphill battle with many, many obstacles,” Lobato said. “And I’m happy that it’s all finally finished.”
The trial began last week in Lobato’s lawsuit against Metro and the two detectives. Lobato accused the detectives of framing her for the murder of Duran Bailey, who was found dead on July 8, 2001, badly beaten and with his penis severed.
Her attorneys said in closing arguments this week that either detectives knew Lobato was innocent, or they were deliberately indifferent to her innocence.
Lobato spent more than 15 years incarcerated and was released from police custody in early 2018, after the district attorney’s office declined to pursue a third trial against her. A judge had vacated her conviction for a second time after finding that she received ineffective counsel, following the presentation of new evidence showing Lobato was at her parents’ home in Panaca at the time Bailey died.
On Oct. 30, District Judge Veronica Barisich signed a certificate declaring Lobato innocent of Bailey’s murder.
(Excerpt) Read more at reviewjournal.com ...
The county has unlimited money, so they can come up with big verdicts.
Why aren’t the detective arrested?
Nancy Mace might have interest in this story
She had to wait over 20 years to get a win on this case.
> Why aren’t the detective arrested? <
Good question. At a bare minimum, it’s deprivation of rights under color of law. The detectives will certainly say they arrested that poor woman in good faith. And they were simply wrong.
I’d say that’s for a jury to decide.
Her attorneys said in closing arguments this week that either detectives knew Lobato was innocent, or they were deliberately indifferent to her innocence.
I’d guess that most of the time when cops do this it’s because they’re convinced of the persons guilt. Sometimes once copse focus on a suspect that’s just it.
“Lobato was 18 when she was interviewed by police without an attorney and then arrested.’
Never talk to the police, not even if they ask you the time of day.
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“Good question. At a bare minimum, it’s deprivation of rights under color of law.”
in that case, it is a violation of civil rights, and that makes it federal.
At the end of the day, the prosecutor my not convict Detectives Thomas Thowsen and James LaRochelle, but they will leave them penniless.
Possibly due to statute of limitations.
A jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse, and guilty of 34 felonies. Just sayin’.
The police are still saying she is guilty. They probably frame people up all the time. Then they get more severe sentences because they don’t take plea bargains.
Good advice, say one word and that word is Lawyer.
When I read this earlier, my only thought was and still is, WHY AREN’T THESE GUYS IN PRISON ALREADY, and they should serve 3 times what the innocent victim served.
The cops should receive the sentence SHE received. The prosecutor, too, if they proceeded with a case knowing she was innocent.
I thought maybe this concerned the FBI.
And that was all just politically motivated.
Why aren’t the detectives strung up on a tree?
More than a million per year of incarceration. not a bad deal but then there would never be enough money on the planet to compensate this poor woman.
I had a law firm in Las Vegas. The cops are corrupt, many judges are corrupt, a good number of the PI firms are corrupt, and a number of the medical providers are corrupt. On the bright side, the beer is cheap.
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