Wrongfully convicted former Lowell resident gets $13M settlement

LOWELL — Victor Rosario can finally move on.

Rosario, 65, a former Lowell resident who spent 32 years in prison after he was wrongfully convicted of starting a fire that killed eight people, will receive a $13 million settlement from the city.

The Lowell City Council voted to settle the civil rights lawsuit Rosario brought against the city just two weeks before the case was set to be heard in federal court.

Rosario’s attorney, Mark Loevy-Reyes, said the settlement brings a conclusion to all of the case’s proceedings.

“I feel free,” Rosario said on Wednesday. “I feel like justice has been done. I feel like now I can take care of my family.”

Rosario was 24 years old when he was convicted of starting the fire on Decatur Street in Lowell in 1982. The blaze killed five children and three adults.

While his attorneys said Rosario tried to help the victims escape the flames, investigators identified him as a suspect.

According to Loevy-Reyes, investigators fabricated evidence and hid evidence that the fire was in fact an accident.

“They brought Victor Rosario for questioning; They coerced a confession after keeping him up all night,” Loevy-Reyes said. “Victor was traumatized because he had tried to save children from the burning fire. He heard their screams.”

During questioning, Rosario was told if he signed a piece of paper, he could go, Loevy-Reyes said. It was in English, and Rosario did not understand it because his native language is Spanish. He signed the paperwork anyway.

Prosecutors said at trial that Rosario and two brothers, who have since died, set the fire by throwing Molotov cocktails at the building. The brothers were never tried because Rosario refused to testify against them.

The trial concluded with a guilty verdict and a life sentence for Rosario.

Rosario’s attorneys, with assistance from the New England Innocence Project and the Committee for Public Counsel Services, persuaded Judge Kathe Tuttman to vacate Rosario’s convictions in 2014. Tuttman ordered a new trial for Rosario, who was freed on $25,000 cash bail as prosecutors appealed.

Loevy-Reyes said changes in fire science cast doubt on whether the blaze was arson. The translator who helped when Rosario confessed signed an affidavit saying Rosario never actually admitted to throwing a Molotov cocktail into the home.

Rosario was also determined to not be mentally sound when he gave the confession, during what Loevy-Reyes described as “an all-night interrogation session.”

Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan announced in September 2017 that the case against Rosario would be dropped instead of retried because court rulings and passage of time left prosecutors unable to meet their burden of proof.

In 2019, Rosario filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Lowell as well as about a dozen police officers and firefighters involved in the investigation, alleging constitutional violations.

The lawsuit said investigators used “outright lies, coercion, threats, mistreatment, and sleep deprivation” and took advantage of Rosario’s “obvious mental health breakdown” to get their client to sign a confession.

According to Loevy-Reyes, the case was set to go to trial on May 15, but the $13 million settlement brought a satisfactory conclusion to the case.

“There’s a sense of relief, there’s a sense of feeling whole, and there’s a sense of justice,” Loevy-Reyes said, adding that the city of Lowell “stepped up.”

“We came to an agreement with the city of Lowell where we felt like they were working toward justice in this process,” Loevy-Reyes said.

More than three decades behind prison walls forced Rosario to miss the growth of his four children, as well as the birth of his eight grandkids. Though those years are lost, Rosario said his focus is to now embrace the time they have together.

“Thirty-five years, more than half of my life, I spent behind the wall of a Massachusetts state prison,” Rosario read from a written statement at a news conference outside Boston’s federal courthouse Wednesday. “Today this chapter is ended and a new chapter begins. Nothing can ever compensate me for those years taken from me.”

Rosario noted the most painful part of his time behind prison walls was grieving the loss of his mother, who died in 2007.

Rosario noted his mother would fly from her home in Puerto Rico to Massachusetts to visit him. He grows emotional when recounting her last visit when she told him it would be her final trip to see him due to her failing health.

“When my mother asked me when I’m coming home, it was hard for me to explain that I was doing life in prison and that I was an innocent man,” Rosario said. “I struggle to find the words for all the feelings.”

Rosario, who currently lives in Boston, said he has forgiven those who put him behind bars.

“I had to make a decision between, do I hate the people, or do I love the people?” Rosario said. “I made the decision to love and no matter the situation I found myself, I always look at the positive to try to survive in the prison system.”

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.

Follow Aaron Curtis on Twitter @aselahcurtis

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/e0qh4OL