$4.77 Million Settlement for Three Alaska Prisoners Exonerated of Murder After 18 Years
by David M. Reutter
On November 6, 2023, three of the “Fairbanks Four” accepted $5 million from the Alaska city for 18 years they spent wrongfully incarcerated for a teen’s 1997 murder before their exoneration in 2015. The case featured almost every hallmark of a wrongful conviction, including a confession from one of the true killers, as well as recanted testimony from a key witness and evidence that police had framed the four for the murder.
Witnesses said that five young men were driving around Fairbanks in the early hours of October 11, 1997, looking for Alaska natives to beat up. One potential victim, Robert John, 60, got away. But 15-year-old John Hartman was kicked and beaten to death. The next day, Fairbanks Police Department (FPD) Lt. James Geier got descriptions of the five attackers from witness Daniel Huntington, identifying William Holmes, Jason Wallace, Shelmar Johnson, Rashad Brown and Marquez Pennington. Yet Geier neither investigated the lead nor passed it along to State Troopers who later re-investigated the case. FPD also got descriptions of the same five men from three other witnesses, but the leads were not pursued.
Shortly after the murder, FPD arrested an intoxicated Eugene Vent, then 17, mere blocks from where Hartman’s body was found. Det. Clifford Aaron Ring later admitted that he had no reason to suspect Vent in the murder. But the teen presented “an opportune target for coercive interrogation,” as the Fairbanks Four’s civil rights complaint later recalled. Vent proclaimed his innocence through three interrogations before he was worn down, eventually “confirming” details of the crime that cops fed to him.
One of those details was that the crime was mainly perpetrated by Kevin Pease, 19. He was brought in for questioning and denied involvement until Ring and Det. Dave Kendrick lied that witnesses at the scene had identified him. They then fed him details of the crime and “helped” him revise his statements to match Vent’s, identifying him as a codefendant, along with Marvin Roberts, 19, and George Frese, 20.
The detectives then pressured Arlo Olsen, who consumed over 20 drinks the night of the murder, to change his description of men he had witnessed assaulting Franklin Dayton outside a bar and their vehicle. Police gave him information to describe Roberts’ car and the Fairbanks Four. But no DNA or other physical evidence connected them to the murder scene. Detectives ignored that, though, also fabricating false boot mark evidence to show that Frese stomped Hartman’s face.
When alibi witnesses claimed the four were not together on the night of the murder, the fabricated evidence and Olsen’s statements convinced a jury to convict them of murder, robbery, and assault. Roberts was sentenced to 33 years in prison; Vent got 40 years with 10 suspended; Pease got 70 years with 15 suspended; and Frese got 97 years with 20 suspended.
Worse, as they languished in prison, Hartman’s real murderers went on killing. Wallace committed two murders and conspired in five others, including the killing of a young child. Holmes and Brown were convicted of murdering a pregnant woman and three men. All five of the real killers committed additional violent crimes. Meanwhile Scott Davison, “a friend of the true murderer Wallace,” the complaint recalled, accused him of killing Hartman in 2008. But again FPD allegedly concealed Davison’s statement.
While imprisoned in California in 2011, Holmes admitted to guard Joseph Torquato “that he was part of the group that killed Hartman,” the complaint continued. Torquato passed that to his captain, and a memo went to FPD. But it took another four years for action to be taken. Torquato continued to pressure Holmes until he mailed a confession to the Alaska Innocence Project. An investigation launched then by State Troopers uncovered sufficient evidence to exonerate the Fairbanks Four. Torquato’s memo about Holmes’s 2011 confession was found in Geier’s office, though the detective allegedly lied and “claimed that FPD had discovered the Torquato memo on the internet,” the complaint asserted.
After a five-week hearing, the Fairbanks Superior Court granted the four’s post-conviction petitions. They were released on October 17, 2015, but only after agreeing not to sue. Calling that agreement coerced and invalid, they filed suit anyway in federal court for the District of Alaska in 2017. The parties then proceeded to reach their settlement agreement, which paid $1.59 million each to Frese, Vent and Pease—$4.77 million total. Roberts declined the settlement offer, and his case is still pending. Frese and Pease were represented by attorneys with MacDonald, Hoague & Bayless in Seattle and Fairbanks attorney Thomas R. Wickwire. Vent was represented by attorneys with Kramer & Associates in Fairbanks and Neufeld, Scheck & Brustin in New York City. See: Roberts v. City of Fairbanks, USDC (D. Alaska), Case No. 4:17-cv-00034.
Additional Source: AP News
As a digital subscriber to Prison Legal News, you can access full text and downloads for this and other premium content.
Already a subscriber? Login