“If the defendants had not ignored and obeyed numerous court orders requiring them to produce the documentation that ultimately freed Mr Alford, he would not have been locked up for more than 1,700 days,” Alford’s lawyers wrote in a complaint which CNN got.
He was arrested in 2015 after a suspect in a separate drug-related crime cut a deal with police and provided information about Alford, according to the registry. He was convicted in 2016 of second-degree murder.
Alford’s lawyers said they had requested records from Hertz that would confirm Alford’s alibi. Hertz did not respond until 2018 – more than a year after a jury found Alford, among others, guilty of murder.
The records Hertz provided in 2018 showed that Alford had rented a car minutes before Adams’ murder, which took place about 20 minutes away, Jamie White, Alford’s lawyer, told CNN.
Alford spent nearly five years in prison before all charges against him were dismissed in February 2020. According to the charge sheet, he was on a mortgage from February to December 2020.
But the years he locked up for a crime he did not commit could have been avoided, his lawyers said, if Hertz had provided the receipt when it was first requested.
Hertz says he tried to find the receipt in 2016
“Although we were unable to find the historical rental record from 2011 when it was requested in 2015, we have tried in good faith to locate it,” the spokesman said in a statement to CNN. “With the progress in the search for data in the years that followed, we were able to locate the rental record in 2018 and provide it immediately.”
Since his release in December, Alford has struggled to adjust to life after imprisonment, White said.
“He’s been through a few things right now,” he told CNN. “He’s trying to figure out his next move … and we hope he’s back on track soon.”
According to the complaint, Alford is asking for compensation of more than $ 25,000. But there is “no dollar figure that will fix it,” White said.