On March 12, EP client Frank Drew was exonerated after spending 24 years wrongfully incarcerated for a 1996 homicide that he did not commit. Mr. Drew’s conviction was vacated and he was released following an evidentiary hearing in 2022, but he faced retrial for two years until the charges against him were dropped in March.
His conviction rested largely on a false confession, that he was beaten into giving, and a tangled web of false and coerced testimonies. Mr. Drew’s co-defendant originally claimed to have committed the shooting with Mr. Drew, but later recanted and stated that he was also coerced into confessing to the crime by another witness. This latter witness testified and implicated both men at their original trials, but has since admitted that his statement was a lie and that he coerced Mr. Drew’s co-defendant into falsely implicating Mr. Drew.
Mr. Drew has spent the past two years preparing for a murder retrial nearly 30 years after the fact, after already spending 24 years wrongfully imprisoned. We are so happy that he is finally able to start putting his wrongful conviction behind him and moving forward. Mr. Drew is represented by Attorneys Karl Leonard, Josh Tepfer, and Fadya Salem of the Exoneration Project.
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