American Military News November 26, 2020 Samantha Melamed - The Philadelphia Inquirer
Philly man has served 38 years for robbery of $1,200. Witnesses say he wasn’t even there
The night that neighborhood kids robbed the Sweet Love Lounge, Jean Wilson was working behind the bar.
That was back in 1982, and she’s in her 70s now. But she remembers the ordeal vividly — from the moment they kicked away the brick propping open the door and said “This is a stickup!†all the way to the court proceedings in which she testified and four men were convicted.
No one was injured and no shots fired. A total of about $1,200 was taken. But the sentences were substantial, ranging from three years for one codefendant, up to a term of 55 to 110 years for Dennis “Solo†McKeithan, the only one of the four still in prison today.
One thing Wilson says has always been clear in her mind: McKeithan was not there. “I kept saying he wasn’t there,†she said recently. But, she said, police would not accept that. “They got on my nerves so bad, and I was pregnant. I just didn’t want to talk about it no more. So I just said, ‘Yeah, he did it.’ “
On Nov. 23, a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge is expected to rule on whether to grant an evidentiary hearing based on Wilson’s recantation, as well as an exculpatory statement from one of McKeithan’s codefendants and other evidence dredged from the murky, decades-old case by a dogged team of investigators. They describe a tainted investigation with connections to infamous police scandals in which dozens of officers were implicated in extortion, false arrests, fabrication of evidence, and involvement in illegal gambling operations.
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https://americanmilitarynews.com/2020/11/philly-man-has-served-38-years-for-robbery-of-1200-witnesses-say-he-wasnt-even-there/
