An aspiring hip-hop artist and former I Love New York 2 contestant has been awarded a $13.1 million settlement from the city of San Francisco.
Per the San Francisco Examiner, Jamal Trulove spent over six years behind bars after he was wrongfully convicted of first-degree murder in 2010. Trulove was identified as the shooter in the 2007 death of his friend. His conviction was overturned in 2014, and he was acquitted of murder in a 2015 retrial, under claims of prosecutorial misconduct.
In January 2016, Trulove filed a federal lawsuit against the city alleging police “manipulated an eyewitness, Priscilla Lualemaga, into misidentifying Mr. Trulove as the shooter.”
He was awarded $10 million in damages in 2018 when a jury concluded homicide officers Maureen D’Amico and Michael Johnson fabricated and withheld evidence.
Earlier this month, Trulove wrote an emotional Instagram post outlining the effects of his prison sentence including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
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"It’s just hitting me 4 years later on what happened to me after revisiting this footage. I’ve finally grown enough from the Trauma induced reality of what the project experience made me believe that was acceptable. There's nothing I could do to make up for that time I missed," he captioned his post.
Following the initial offer, Trulove changed his rap name to "10millimilli." According to NPR, the artist spent years in maximum security prisons in California and would have served 50 years to life.
The City Attorney’s Office appealed the decision to pay Trulove an additional $4.5 million in attorney fees, later dropping the appeal and settling on the final total of $13.1 million. John Cote, a spokesperson for the office, said the decision was the best solution because "continuing to appeal could have increased that even further, and there were significant legal hurdles to overcome."
Trulove, who is set to appear in the movie The Last Black Man in San Francisco in June, tweeted his fight is not over.
And trust me I’m not done with them by a long shot!! After what these cowards of the law did to me, I will lit my freedom ring through every platform I get to show what injustice really looks like. Me! #JamalTrulove
#LifeAfterLife
#Reform
#SanFrancisco
“And Sand still i rise” pic.twitter.com/ON3sR3uBgf— jamal trulove (@10millimilli) March 20, 2019
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