DETROIT (AP) — A man in prison for more than 25 years was freed Tuesday after prosecutors acknowledged that his confession to a Detroit murder in 1999 was coerced by a rogue police officer.
Wearing a big smile and a Detroit Lions hoodie, George Calicut Jr. hugged his legal team as he emerged from a prison in Coldwater, Michigan, where he was serving a life sentence.
Calicut, 56, has long professed his innocence in the murder of Virgie Perkins — there were no witnesses or physical evidence against him — and said he never saw his purported confession until confronted with it at trial.
In addition, recent DNA testing “further supports the lack of any evidence” connecting him to the killing at Perkins’ home, the Wayne County prosecutor’s office and his lawyers said.
Clearing Calicut “reflects this office’s unwavering commitment to the integrity of convictions and the credibility of the system,” said Valerie Newman, head of the conviction integrity unit.
Calicut was released from prison soon after a judge dismissed the case at the request of lawyers on both sides.
He was represented by the Innocence Clinic at University of Michigan Law School. Cooley Innocence Project at Cooley Law School also had a role.
Calicut was accused of choking Perkins and cutting her neck while stealing money and a phone from her home in 1999. He admitted that he took a phone the next day from Perkins’ son but said he grabbed it from a vehicle.
At trial, a Detroit homicide investigator, Barbara Simon, acknowledged that she wrote Calicut’s alleged confession before he signed it. Calicut testified in his own defense and denied the statements but was nonetheless convicted of murder and automatically given a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
“Simon told Mr. Calicut, who had no prior interactions with police, that she could help him by creating a statement that would reduce the charge to manslaughter, which would allow him to get a bond and go home,” prosecutors and Calicut’s attorneys said in a four-page agreement to have the conviction dismissed.
Simon, who’s retired from Detroit police, could not be immediately reached for comment. A phone number was unanswered.
Detroit has spent millions of dollars settling lawsuits related to Simon’s work as a homicide investigator.
Records show Calicut’s trial prosecutor was Mike Cox, who later served as Michigan attorney general and is now a Republican candidate for governor. An email seeking comment about the exoneration was not immediately answered.