The city has agreed to a $2.5 million payout to Raymond Flanks, who spent 39 years locked up before District Attorney Jason Williams’ office in 2022 agreed to vacate his murder conviction based on a failure by prosecutors to turn over evidence decades earlier.
Monday’s settlement came a week into a federal jury trial in which Flanks sought much more for his lost years, while an attorney for the DA claimed Williams’ civil rights division had overstepped in agreeing to the release.
Flanks’ attorneys, Christopher Murell and David Shanies, said in a statement that their client, now 64, showed “extraordinary courage” before accepting a settlement that “allows him to move forward with his life” and avoid a lengthy and uncertain appeal if he’d won…