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Former Kenosha man wants compensation for wrongful conviction

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//May 11, 2015//

Former Kenosha man wants compensation for wrongful conviction

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//May 11, 2015//

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A man whose sex assault charges were dismissed after the victim recanted her testimony is asking for compensation for the time he spent in prison.

Willie Gavin, who lived in Kenosha when he was convicted but now resides in Riverdale, Ill., appeared before the State of Wisconsin Claims Board on Monday to request more than $48,700 for the time he spent behind bars.

State law caps the compensation offered for wrongful imprisonment at $25,000. Gavin’s lawyer, Christopher Rose, said the money, among other things, would cover fees Gavin owes to Wisconsin and Illinois and that were charged to him when he was under supervision. The Wisconsin fees have been paid, Rose said, but Gavin still owes thousands of dollars to Illinois.

“I’m not aware of a way,” he said, “to simply make them disappear or go away.”

Rose said that the compensation his client is requesting is minimal, given the time his client spent in prison and the effect of the charges on Gavin’s reputation. He said Gavin remains registered as a sex offender.

Gavin was convicted in 1997 of charges of child enticement and first-degree sexual assault of a child. He pleaded no contest and was sentenced to eight years in prison and 15 years of probation.

“Mr. Gavin, however, has always asserted that he is innocent of the crime. That has never wavered,” Rose said at Monday’s Claims Board hearing.

Gavin, with help from his former lawyer, Donald Bielski, filed an appeal, which was ultimately rejected. Despite that setback, Rose said, Gavin still attempted to seek counsel to overturn his conviction, getting in touch at one point with the Wisconsin Innocence Project and Northwestern University’s Center on Wrongful Convictions.

He was put on supervision in 2002. The charges were dismissed in February 2014, after the alleged victim, now in her 20s, recanted her testimony, which was given when she was 6 years old.

“We viewed it as complete vindication,” Rose said.  “But he spent five years and three months in prison for a crime he was innocent of.”

Emily Trigg, Kenosha County assistant district attorney, also testified at Monday’s hearing. She said her office had to ask for the charges against Gavin to be dismissed. The Kenosha County District Attorney’s Office, she explained, could not find the victim’s foster mother to corroborate the victim’s original testimony and therefore could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Gavin had committed the crime.

Rose stressed during the hearing that Gavin’s no-contest plea in 1997 was not an admission of guilt. He also said that, no matter if a defendant pleads no contest or even guilty, Wisconsin State Supreme Court precedent allows the dismissal of convictions that are made dubious by the discovery of new evidence.

Trigg said that Gavin lacked credibility because he had failed for years to act on a letter, sent in 2005 to his pastor, in which the victim recanted her accusations. Nothing was done about the letter until 2013, when Rose filed a motion to withdraw Gavin’s no-contest plea.

Moreover, she said, Gavin submitted to a polygraph test in 1997. Even though the devices are not allowed in criminal proceedings, he was found to be deceptive on material questions of fact.

Gavin also denied her request to obtain his sex offender treatment records, which the state requires.

“Why not let the records be released,” she said, “if he was innocent?”

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