NYC Settles Over Autistic Man's False Confession

NEW YORK (AP) - New York City officials have agreed to pay $340,000 to an autistic man who spent a year in jail after he confessed to a murder he didn't commit.

Ozem Goldwire, 31, was detained at a Brooklyn police station and questioned for more than 21 hours in 2006 after he dialed 911 to report discovering his sister's body.

His lawyers said in a lawsuit that three detectives screamed at Goldwire, shoved him around, cursed at him, falsely accused him of rape and then told him if he didn't write a confession he wouldn't be allowed to leave. When he finally gave in, he was charged with murder.

Prosecutors ultimately decided Goldwire was innocent and let him go, but he lost a year behind bars while he waited to be exonerated. Sherika Goldwire's strangulation death remains unsolved.

"I think they realized pretty early on that they had the wrong guy," said his lawyer, Gerald Allen. He added that Goldwire's supposed confession, in which he described attacking his sister after the two argued about the volume on the TV, was "essentially stuff that police fed him."

The city's legal department said in a statement that the situation was "unfortunate," but said police and prosecutors acted appropriately.

A federal judge in Brooklyn approved the settlement Tuesday.

Allen said that Goldwire has gradually put his life back together since his release from jail in 2007.

"He seems to be back where he needs to be. He is working. He's not focused on the past," he said.

The case, he added, shows the need for routine videotaping of police interrogations — something an increasing number of law enforcement agencies are doing, but not the NYPD. The judge who handled Goldwire's criminal case said on the day he dismissed the charges that the department should review its interrogation procedures for special-needs people.

At least some of the detectives who handled the case seemed to have been aware that Goldwire had a developmental disability, Allen said.

When they first asked him to describe his activities on the day of the killing, he complied in astounding detail, from the exact time he got on the bus in the morning to the moment he arrived home from work and found his sister's body.

Goldwire's autism, Allen said, causes him to make a mental note of his own movements, precise to the minute.