Wrongfully convicted Kansas man to get $7.5 million payment
Advertisement
Read this article for free:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Digital Subscription
One year of digital access for only $1.44 a week*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Billed as $5.77 plus GST every four weeks. After 52 weeks, price increases to the regular rate of $19.95 plus GST every four weeks. Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional
$1 for the first 4 weeks*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.
Read unlimited articles for free today:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/04/2023 (1270 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
OSKALOOSA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas man who spent 16 years in prison for a rape and murder he didn’t commit will receive $7.5 million from the county where he was arrested and convicted of the crime.
Jefferson County commissioners approved the settlement last week with Floyd Bledsoe, who was released from prison in 2015 after DNA evidence showed he could not have been the killer of 14-year-old Camille Arfmann in Oskaloosa.
Bledsoe will receive $1.5 million initially, with the rest to be paid over the next 10 years, The Kansas City Star reported.
Bledsoe, who is now 46, was 23 when he was convicted in 2000 of killing the girl. He was arrested even though his brother, Tom, confessed to the killing in 1999, turned himself in and led authorities to the girl’s body.
According to a lawsuit Floyd Bledsoe filed in 2016, Jefferson County authorities persuaded Tom Bledsoe to recant his confession and “framed” his brother by hiding evidence of his innocence.
In 2015, DNA testing revealed Tom Bledsoe was the likely source of sperm found in the victim. Tom Bledsoe died by suicide that year after writing a note again confessing to killing Arfmann.
The charges against Floyd Bledsoe were dismissed and he was freed from prison that year.
One of Bledsoe’s attorneys, Russell Ainsworth of Loevy & Loevy in Chicago, said Jefferson County was facing up to $40 million in liability if the case went to trial.
Jefferson County Commissioner Richard Malm said the county’s annual budget is about $20 million and the commission would have had to propose a bond if Bledsoe had not agreed to have the payment spread over 10 years.
In 2019, the state agreed to pay Bledsoe $1.03 million under a mistaken conviction law.