He Was Framed by Police and Spent 38 Years in Prison — Now He Has $25 Million, But Not His Life Back
Maurice Hastings, who spent more than 38 years behind bars for a 1983 murder he did not commit, appears at a court in Los Angeles where a judge officially found him to be factually innocent on March 1, 2023. (J. Emilio Flores/Cal State LA News Service via AP, Pool)
A California man who spent nearly four decades behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit has received a $25 million settlement — the largest wrongful conviction payout in the state’s history, according to his attorneys.
Maurice Hastings, now 72, was convicted in 1983 for the sexual assault and murder of Roberta Wydermyer, who was found shot once in the head. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Hastings was exonerated in 2022 after DNA evidence proved he was not the perpetrator.
“No amount of money could ever restore the 38 years of my life that were stolen from me,” Hastings said in a statement. “But this settlement is a welcome end to a very long road, and I look forward to moving on with my life.”
The settlement was reached in August, according to court documents unsealed Monday, the Associated Press reported.
Hastings had long maintained his innocence and fought for DNA testing of evidence collected during Wydermyer’s autopsy. Although he requested testing in 2000, the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office denied it at the time. It wasn’t until 2021, when Hastings submitted a claim of innocence to the DA’s Conviction Integrity Unit, that DNA analysis was finally conducted. The results showed the DNA belonged to someone else.
That DNA was later matched in a state database to Kenneth Packnett — a man convicted in a separate case involving the armed kidnapping and sexual assault of a woman who, like Wydermyer, was locked in the trunk of a car. Packnett had been arrested just weeks after Wydermyer’s murder on unrelated charges. At the time, police found jewelry and a coin purse resembling items that belonged to Wydermyer. However, he was never investigated in connection with her death. Packnett died in prison in 2020 while serving a sentence for another crime.
In his lawsuit, Hastings accused two Inglewood Police Department officers and a Los Angeles District Attorney’s investigator of framing him.
After prosecutors and his attorneys jointly requested his conviction be vacated, Hastings was released in 2022 at the age of 69.
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