Syracuse, N.Y. — The family of a former Cazenovia man is in line to get a $1 million settlement from Onondaga County, ending a decades-long legal battle over whether he was wrongfully convicted in a murder from the 1980s.
Hector Rivas had long said the former county medical examiner, Erik Mitchell, fabricated evidence that District Attorney William Fitzpatrick used in convicting him in the March 1987 murder of Rivas’ ex-girlfriend, Valerie Hill. Fitzpatrick has said there is a “mountain” of other evidence showing Rivas is guilty.
A local lawyer, Sidney Manes, agreed to help Rivas and in 2015 got a panel of federal judges to order a new trial. Rivas, who spent 24 years in prison, died in 2016 before a trial could be held. Manes died last year…