NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A suspect in a 1998 Louisiana killing says in a lawsuit that a prosecutor and an investigator coerced a teenager to give fabricated eyewitness testimony.
Michael Wearry is awaiting a retrial after his 2002 conviction and death sentence in the slaying of 16-year-old Eric Walber were thrown out by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2016. The high court said the state’s trial evidence “resembles a house of cards” built on the questionable testimony of a prison informant who other inmates said was seeking revenge against Wearry.
Wearry’s lawsuit says that, since that ruling, a witness who was a teenager when he testified for the prosecution has testified in court that he was coerced into giving false statements. It names Scott Perrilloux, the District Attorney for the state’s 21st District, east of Baton Rouge, and Marlon Kearney Foster, at the time of the trial an investigator for the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office, as defendants.
It says the teen was pulled out of school in 2001, without parental permission. It adds that the young witness “was subject to juvenile court proceedings at the time” and was vulnerable to intimidation by authorities such as Perrilloux and Foster.”
It says Perrilloux and Foster met with the youth and provided him with a “completely fabricated” story to adopt and repeat, implicating Wearry in Walber’s murder.
The lawsuit was filed for Wearry in federal court in Baton Rouge by the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center. The district attorney and sheriff’s offices did not respond to messages seeking comment Thursday.