George Bell is suing New York City and eight police officers after he spent nearly a quarter century in prison and faced the death penalty for a crime he did not commit.
Bell was convicted in the December 1996 slaying of an off-duty police officer and a business owner of a check-cashing store, a capital murder offense that Bell confessed to when he was arrested days after the killings. However, new evidence in the case pointed to other suspects, and Bell’s conviction was overturned in 2021.
Now Bell is asking to be compensated at least $50 million for the near quarter-century that he was behind bars for a mistake.
“Police and prosecutorial misconduct caused this tragedy,” the federal lawsuit obtained by Atlanta Black Star alleges. “The investigation, trial, and conviction of Mr. Bell were tainted by a coerced confession, the fabrication of evidence, and the withholding of voluminous Brady material that made it clear that a local robbery ring called “Speedstick” — not Mr. Bell — had committed the crime.”
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There was political pressure to find a culprit in the slaying of the police officer. The officer, Charles Davis, worked security at a Queens check-cashing store owned by Ira “Mike” Epstein.
Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and police officials said they “would not rest” until they solved the double-homicide. Giuliani vowed to find those responsible for the Dec. 21 murder by Christmas.
Bell’s attorney, Richard Emery, said Giuliani was “pandering to tabloids and to the communities that he thought would back him up and elect him.”
“Crime was very serious [at] that time,” Emery said. “He was seeking to back a police force that was making…clearly false prosecutions based on bad police work.”
The New York Daily News ran a front-page story when Bell was apprehended. Just 19 years old at the time, the paper caught the teenager in tears at the police station and labeled him the “Crybaby Cop Killer.” The Daily News also ran a full-page editorial calling for Bell to be executed. The New York Post referred to a zoomed-in photo of Bell as the face of evil.
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