LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - A Kentucky woman who was charged in a strangling death as a teen and later pardoned by the governor has filed a federal lawsuit that says she was wrongly accused of the slaying.
Johnetta Carr said Louisville police investigators coerced her testimony after she was arrested at age 16 in 2006, according to the lawsuit filed on Tuesday in U.S. District Court.
The victim, Planes Adolphe, was found strangled at a Louisville apartment complex. The lawsuit said officers, including detective Tony Finch, fabricated evidence and coerced her co-defendant and jailhouse informants. No DNA tied her to the crime, and a man considered to be a suspect in the case falsely told police she was linked to the killing, without evidence, according to the suit.
In 2008, Carr took an Alford plea to second-degree manslaughter and other charges, and she was paroled the next year. In an Alford plea, a defendant acknowledges the evidence but maintains their innocence. Carr remained on parole until former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin pardoned her last December.
Carr, now studying to become a paralegal, recalled investigators keeping her in a room for 11 hours and yelling profanity at her during an interrogation.
“What I went through is absolutely horrible,” she said during an online news conference Tuesday.
The suit was filed by Chicago lawyer Elliot Slosar and names the city of Louisville, Finch and several former officers. Louisville police declined to comment on the lawsuit, citing pending litigation.
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