NY: State appeals Dan Gristwood's $5.5 million verdict for wrongful conviction

Syracuse, NY -- Lawyers for the state have filed a notice saying they might appeal a $5.5 million wrongful imprisonment verdict awarded to an Oswego County man.

The state filed the notice last week with the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court, and has 60 days to follow through with an appeal of the verdict awarded to Daniel Gristwood.

If it's filed and Gristwood prevails, he probably won't see his money for at least another nine months, said his lawyer, Thomas Shannon.

Ed J. Thompson, the assistant attorney general in charge of the Syracuse office, declined to comment.

The interest on the verdict goes up $1,369 a day, Shannon said. The interest has already reached more than $1 million from the date in April 2011 when state Court of Claims Judge Nicholas Midey found the state liable, Shannon said.

If the state follows through with the appeal and it takes nine months, that would tack on another $370,000 in interest and bring the total to nearly $7 million.

Gristwood, 46, runs a small-engine repair business out of his Pennellville home. He's said he's planning to use the money from the verdict to help his five children and five grandchildren.

"He's frustrated," Shannon said of Gristwood's reaction to the state's filing. "He wishes it were over. But this is out of everyone's control."

It does appear that the state's lawyers plan to follow through with the appeal because they've asked for copies of all the exhibits from the trial, Shannon said.

The state could appeal both the amount of Midey's verdict and his finding that the state was liable.

Midey ruled in May that the state must pay Gristwood for the nine years he spent in prison on a crime someone else committed.

Gristwood was freed from prison in 2005, two years after Mastho Davis admitted he was the man who attacked Gristwood's wife, Christina Gristwood, with a hammer as she slept in the Gristwoods' Clay apartment in 1996.

Midey found that state troopers coerced a false confession from Gristwood in 1996.

Gristwood testified in a Court of Claims trial two years ago that his time in prison was a "living hell, " and that the years of separation from his children severely strained his relationship with them. Two psychologists - one for Gristwood and one for the state - agreed that he is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and major depression from being wrongfully convicted and imprisoned.

Christina Gristwood suffered severe brain damage and was paralyzed on one side in the attack.

Davis first admitted he was the attacker, although he didn't know the victim's name, during a 2003 court appearance on an unrelated crime. After authorities took no action, he walked into the Syracuse Police Department and again a few months later and told officers he'd beaten a woman with a hammer seven years earlier.

Gristwood was convicted in 1996 of attempted murder and sentenced to 12 1/2 to 25 years in prison. State Supreme Court Justice John Brunetti set Gristwood free in 2005 based on Davis' confession.

Davis attacked three other strangers in the 10 years after beating Christina Gristwood. The last was in 2006, when he broke into the home of a 75-year-old woman in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., and beat and raped her. He was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison.

Original report here




(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here