Oops: Hartford loses insurance policy in wrongful imprisonment

HARTFORD (AP) — City officials say they cannot find a 30-year-old insurance policy that could play a key role in any damages or settlement the city would have to pay in a lawsuit filed by a man wrongly imprisoned for murder for two decades.

The inability to locate the policy prompted federal Magistrate Judge Joan Margolis in New Haven on Monday to order the city to subpoena insurance companies in an effort to find it.

Miguel Roman, of Manchester, filed the federal lawsuit against the city and police officials in March 2011, alleging malicious prosecution, suppression of evidence and violation of his civil rights. City officials deny the allegations. His lawyers have been seeking information on the city’s insurance policies since the lawsuit was filed nearly seven years ago.

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Roman, 61, was convicted of murder in the 1988 killing of his 17-year-old girlfriend, Carmen Lopez, of Hartford, who was pregnant. Roman, who was not the father of the unborn baby, served 20 years of a 60-year sentence before being released in December 2008 and later exonerated based on new DNA testing that resulted in another man being convicted of her killing.

State officials later awarded Roman $6 million for his wrongful conviction.

Read more: http://www.rep-am.com/news/news-connecticut/2018/02/03/oops-hartford-loses-insurance-policy-in-wrongful-imprisonment/