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D.C. firefighter freed from prison after conviction based on Fairfax County officer’s false claims is thrown out

Elon Wilson served nearly two years on charges based on evidence provided by former officer Jonathan Freitag, now under FBI investigation

By Tom Jackman
April 21, 2021 at 9:23 a.m. EDT

A former D.C. firefighter was released from a Virginia prison Wednesday after a Fairfax County judge vacated his 2019 conviction on drug and gun charges, which were based on falsehoods told by a former Fairfax County police officer now under state and FBI investigation. Fairfax County prosecutors said last week they hoped to clear more than 400 convictions obtained by the patrol officer, but the firefighter’s was first because he was the only one still behind bars.

The investigation into former officer Jonathan A. Freitag demonstrated “an alarming chain of events,” Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge Daniel E. Ortiz wrote in an opinion issued Tuesday night, which evolved into “an extensive trail of fraud and deception … Freitag’s false statements undermined judicial integrity in the public’s eyes and left a man sitting in prison for almost two years.” Less than 24 hours after the judge’s order, Elon J. Wilson was released from the Nottoway Work Center in southern Virginia, according to the state Department of Corrections.

[Fairfax seeks to dismiss 400 convictions in cases brought by one officer]

Wilson, 26, was arrested by Freitag after driving with a teenage cousin in Fairfax County early one morning in April 2018. Freitag claimed in his reports that Wilson had driven across the yellow line, took too long to pull over after Freitag turned on his lights, and had illegally tinted windows, court records show. Freitag wrote that he smelled marijuana in the car, and so pulled the two occupants out and searched the car, where he found a bag of 450 OxyContin tablets and two handguns in the glove compartment, court records state.

Wilson told police that the drugs and guns belonged to his passenger, but Fairfax County prosecutors threatened him with 10 years in prison for distributing drugs and possessing a gun while selling drugs, his lawyer said. Wilson had a 5-month-old baby, and so chose a plea bargain in which he received a three-year sentence, which he’s been serving since July 2019.

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Tom Jackman
Tom Jackman has been covering criminal justice for The Washington Post since 1998 and anchors the True Crime blog. He previously covered crime and courts for the Kansas City Star. Follow https://twitter.com/TomJackmanWP