In California’s Largest-Ever Wrongful Conviction Settlement, the City of Inglewood Pays a Record-Breaking $25 Million to Exoneree Maurice Hastings

Inglewood Police Department knowingly put an innocent man behind bars for more than 38 years while the real killer went free

[Inglewood, CA] — With a trial date approaching this month, the City of Inglewood agreed to pay a record $25 million to settle a wrongful conviction lawsuit brought by exoneree Maurice Hastings, the national civil rights law firm Neufeld Scheck Brustin Hoffmann & Freudenberger (NSBHF) announced today. The agreement is believed to be the largest wrongful conviction settlement in California history. Following the settlement, the lawsuit has now been officially dismissed.

“This historic settlement is a powerful vindication for Mr. Hastings, who has shown remarkable fortitude first in fighting to prove his innocence, and then in showing that he was framed,” said NSBHF partner Nick Brustin. “Police departments throughout California and across the country should take notice that there is a steep price to pay for allowing such egregious misconduct on their watch.”

Wrongly arrested at 31 for the 1983 carjacking, rape, and murder of Roberta Wydermyer and attempted murders of her husband Billy Wydermyer and his friend George Pinson, Hastings was exonerated in 2022 at the age of 69.  As NSBHF’s 2023 federal civil rights lawsuit demonstrated in graphic detail, IPD detective Grant Price falsified evidence of Hastings’s guilt and buried evidence corroborating his alibi, single-handedly framing an innocent man.

Hastings was declared factually innocent by a California superior court in 2023 after DNA evidence cleared him, thanks to the work of attorneys at the Los Angeles Innocence Project (LAIP). The DNA evidence also revealed the identity of the sole real perpetrator: Kenneth Packnett, a convicted sex offender with a long history of criminal behavior strikingly similar to the crimes in this case, who had been arrested for other offenses but released by the IPD shortly after he committed these horrific crimes.

The evidence developed in this civil rights litigation revealed that Price fixated on Hastings and pinned the crimes on him—despite no physical or forensic evidence tying him to the crimes and rapidly mounting evidence of his innocence. Price coerced eyewitnesses to identify Hastings, suppressed exonerating alibi evidence, and falsified witness statements. Shockingly, in this litigation, Price even admitted that he buried critical evidence that would have supported Hastings’s innocence.

“What happened in this case represents policing at its absolute worst,” said NSBHF Counsel Katie McCarthy. “Price not only caused Mr. Hastings’s wrongful conviction but also allowed the true perpetrator to remain free to terrorize other victims.”

Indeed, Price and the IPD ignored overwhelming evidence that Kenneth Packnett was the true perpetrator of the crimes. Less than three weeks after the murder, the IPD had Packnett in custody for an unrelated car theft; when he was arrested, he possessed jewelry and a coin purse that matched the items Ms. Wydermyer had been wearing when she was murdered, as well as the same type of gun that was used to shoot the victims. Yet the IPD never investigated Packnett for the crimes for which the innocent Hastings was convicted. DNA evidence and corroborating testimony from Packnett’s ex-girlfriend later proved that Packnett was the sole perpetrator of the 1983 crimes.

Hastings today lives a quiet life in Southern California, where he is active in his church and volunteers distributing meals to people experiencing homelessness. He is not available for interview but has released the following statement in response to the settlement announcement:

“No amount of money could ever restore the 38 years of my life that were stolen from me,” Hastings said. “But this settlement is a welcome end to a very long road, and I look forward to moving on with my life. I thank God that I’ve made it to the other side of this decades-long ordeal, and I thank my family and legal team for their steadfast support over the years.”

Maurice Hastings is represented by the national civil rights law firm Neufeld Scheck Brustin Hoffmann & Freudenberger, LLP, based in New York; his legal team includes partners Nick Brustin, Anna Benvenutti Hoffmann, and Emma Freudenberger, counsel Katie McCarthy, attorneys Christina Matthias and Annie Sloan, and paralegal Ariel Manning, and local counsel from law firm Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy LLP.

Read coverage of the settlement by the Associated Press here.

Read coverage by the LA Times here. (note: content is behind a paywall)

Read Courthouse News Service’s coverage here.