Horrific. This is how easily this system can throw a man in prison accusing him of horrific crimes. At least unlike other cases where people are exonerated after 20 or 30 or 40 years this was much shorter but still this man's name has been permanently stained.
When the cops realized that this man was not even there when the alleged abuse took place they simply decided to "backtrack" the date so that it fit their narrative.
Cops, prosecutors and this poor fella's first lawyer should all have been sentenced for life or executed.
The police chief "retired" shortly after and then was hired as chief of police in another town, but resigned a few weeks ago. The other cops were promoted as is usual in such cases.
The female district attorney who prosecuted the poor man had a long history of misconduct and was repeatedly jailed for contempt. She was later found dead, possibly suicide. At least that's something.
The Trials of Greg Kelley: A High School Football Phenom Wrongly Convicted of Molesting a 4-Year-Old BoyOn August 9, 2013, Kelley was arrested on charges of sexually assaulting a four-year-old boy.
According to authorities, the child alleged that Kelley “put his pee-pee” in his mouth on two occasions at a daycare operated by Shama McCarty. McCarty, a booster of the Leander Lions’ football team, had been allowing Kelley, a friend and classmate of McCarty’s son Johnathan, to stay at their home in nearby Cedar Park after his mother was hospitalized with a brain tumor. Days later, a second boy came forward to accuse Kelley of making him touch his penis. Kelley was charged with two counts of indecency with a child and two counts of super aggravated sexual assault, the latter carrying a minimum sentence of 25 years in prison.
At the McCarty’s urging, the Kelley’s sold their house to pay for Patricia Cummings, a top defense attorney in the area.
Over the course of the trial, several clues appeared to point to another suspect: Johnathan McCarty, who bore a striking resemblance to Greg Kelley.
In his outcry interview conducted at the Child Advocacy Center in Georgetown, Texas, the first boy alleged that Kelley was wearing SpongeBob Squarepants pajamas during the assaults, and that the assaults occurred in a bedroom with a couch, a crib, and trophies. The boy reported it to his mother on July 13, leading police to determine that the assaults happened on July 12. The second boy initially named Johnathan as the assailant in his outcry interview, before a series of leading questions from a detective led the child to name Greg. Both boys were interviewed over a half-dozen times by various officials, prompting a child psychologist for the prosecution to testify at trial that asking a young child “repeated questions” about a particular event may cause them to believe that it happened.
Here’s the thing: Kelley had moved out of the McCarty’s home on June 11, and on July 12 was many miles away from Cedar Park, helping his brother move from Hutto to a new place in South Austin. Plus, he spent most of his days in weight training or football practice. Johnathan, on the other hand, was still living in the home at the time of the alleged assaults, owned a pair of SpongeBob Squarepants pajamas that he regularly wore to school, and—unlike Kelley—slept in a bedroom with a couch, a crib, and trophies.
None of these facts, however, were brought up at trial. In lieu of offering up Johnathan as an alternate suspect, Cummings sought to prove that the boys made the whole thing up—thereby pitting their words against Kelley’s.
Both young boys testified in a separate room via closed-circuit television. The second boy recanted, repeatedly saying that “Greg” did not assault him; the first boy maintained that Kelley did assault him but was not made to identify him in court. On July 16, 2014, Kelley was acquitted of the charges concerning the second boy but found guilty of two counts of super aggravated sexual assault against the first. Facing life in prison, he agreed to accept the minimum sentence of 25 years with no possibility for parole in exchange for waiving his right to appeal—though he reserved the right to file a motion for a new trial.
In March of 2017, thanks to the financial assistance of a local activist named Jake Brydon, Kelley had managed to hire a new lawyer, Keith Hampton, who’d filed a writ of habeas corpus.
Hampton’s writ of habeas corpus contained a bunch of new potentially exonerating evidence that was not presented at trial, including: that Kelley was not living at the house and helping his brother move when the alleged assaults took place; that Johnathan owned the SpongeBob Squarepants pajamas; that Johnathan’s bedroom contained the couch, crib and trophies; that a cache of child pornography was found on both Johnathan’s cell phone and computer; that four women had accused Johnathan of drugging and raping them while Kelley was behind bars; and that two witnesses heard Johnathan confessing to sexually assaulting the boy. Hampton also accused Cummings and the Cedar Park police department of negligence.
Kelley also learned his initial attorney, Patricia Cummings, had strange ties to the McCarty family—including defending one of Johnathan’s half-brothers of sex crimes.
Kelley was released on bond on August 22, 2017; that December, a judge recommended Kelley’s conviction be overturned due to actual innocence. It wasn’t until November 6, 2019, that Kelley’s conviction was finally vacated
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-trials-of-greg-kelley-a-high-school-football-phenom-wrongly-convicted-of-molesting-a-4-year-old-boy?ref=homehttps://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=5645