Imagine being sentenced to life in prison for a murder you didn’t commit despite having more than enough proof that it wasn’t you, finally being released after 25 years only to be struggle by with no money and nowhere to live, then suddenly becoming a multi-millionaire overnight. No, I don’t think any of us could possibly imagine that.
Meet Jonathan Fleming. This unfortunate fellow’s life resembles something like a rollercoaster ride, and he’s managed to keep his sanity where most of us probably would have cracked under the immense frustration.
Fleming, 52, was convicted for the murder of a man named Darryl Rush. Rush was shot and killed in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on August 15, 1989. Fleming was the prime suspect.
During the trial, prosecutors claimed that Fleming and Rush recently had a dispute, things were said, and voices were raised – hence why he shot him dead.
Fleming’s defense team also had substantial evidence proving his innocence, though. During the trial, they would produce numerous photos and videos of him with his family at Disney World all the way down in Florida at the time of Rush’s murder, as well as plane tickets and dated postcards.
But it was a witness who identified Fleming as the shooter that would end up being the ultimate nail in the coffin.
Fleming was sentenced to life in a high security prison and that’s where his story pauses for the next 25 years, while he sat in a jail cell watching his son grow up from behind bars and unable to be there for his mother as she got sick.
As it turns out, that witness would eventually recant her testimony and explain to the authorities that she’d lied in order to wriggle her way out of an unrelated arrest.
Incredulously, this massive revelation wasn’t enough to convince anyone to reopen Fleming’s case. It was only when a Florida hotel receipt emerged last year that the District Attorney’s office finally decided Fleming’s case needed revising.
The receipt, which had ironically been in his pocket at the time of his arrest and had been in police possession this entire time, showed that a Jonathan Fleming had paid for a hotel room just five hours before Rush was murdered.
After being exonerated of all charges in court, his mother said, “After 25 years, come hug your mother.”
Fleming was immediately released, but that wasn’t the end of his struggle. He was now left homeless with no earthly possessions and $93 to his name. The world had changed around him while he’d been stuck in a cell, leaving him with no clue how to use smartphones and the like.
Luckily, generous strangers who heard of Fleming’s unbelievable situation donated money and raised a total of $49,000 to help him rehabilitate into today’s society.
“I promise that I will treat this money with the respect that it deserves, and that I will forever be thankful to each and every person that took the time to help me out,” he wrote on the fundraising page.
Fleming soon returned to the courtroom to sue the city for $162 million in damages for taking away 25 years of his life.
“That’s 25 years that have been stolen, that he’ll never get back,” his lawyer, Anthony Mayol, said in court.
“I think about all the things I could have accomplished during that time and I come out to nothing,” said Fleming himself.
While he didn’t receive the $162 million he was striving for, New York City authorities have agreed to pay Fleming $6.25 million for the repercussions of their devastating mistake all those years ago.
What will Jonathan Fleming do now that he’s a multi-millionaire who just spent a quarter of a century and the best years of his life wrongfully behind bars? Guess we’ll have to wait and see!
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