PATERSON — A judge ruled on Thursday, Aug. 6, that two retired city police detectives and the estate of a deceased third officer must pay $3.4 million to cover Eric Kelley's legal fees and other costs.
Kelley, who was imprisoned for 27 years until DNA evidence prompted his release, was awarded a $12 million verdict in March in his lawsuit against the former officers.
In that verdict, the jury found that two detectives — Richard Reyes and the late Louis Stell — fabricated evidence, deceived Kelley and coerced him to confess. The jury also determined that supervisor Raymond Reid conspired with Reyes and Stell to violate Kelley's rights.
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The city of Paterson also had been named as a defendant in the case. But U.S. District Judge William Martini ruled after more than two weeks of trial and several days before the verdict that Paterson was off the hook.
After the $12 million verdict, both sides tried to make the city responsible for part of the payment. People involved in the case have told Paterson Press they doubt that the former officers have anything close to $12 million in assets.
The firm that represented Kelley was Neufeld Scheck Brustin Hoffmann & Freudenberger, with offices in the SoHo section of Manhattan.
With the lawsuit having been filed in 2019, the firm said, its staff spent 6,160 hours working on Kelley's case, with 4,800 hours by attorneys and 1,350 by paralegals and interns.
"That is an exceedingly reasonable investment for a six-year litigation that produced a $12 million verdict after a three-week federal trial," the firm wrote in its request for the fees to be paid.
Multiple appeals have been filed.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Paterson cops must pay $3.4M legal bills of man wrongfully imprisoned