MODESTO, Calif. — The estate and wife of a prominent Modesto attorney who died after being wrongfully accused of murder will receive a significant portion of a $22.5 million settlement approved this week by Stanislaus County.
Frank Carson, a former district attorney candidate and well-known defense lawyer, was arrested in connection with the 2012 death of missing Turlock man Korey Kauffman. Carson and seven others—including his wife, daughter, and CHP officers—were charged in what would become one of the county’s most controversial criminal cases.
A jury found the murder-for-hire plot had all been made up. All eight were acquitted in 2019 after 18 months of preliminary hearings. No one else has since been charged in Kauffman’s disappearance and death…