Pontiac brothers file $125 million wrongful conviction lawsuit

Novi — Two Pontiac brothers who spent 25 years behind bars for a rape and murder they say they didn't commit have filed a $125 million federal wrongful conviction lawsuit, claiming a retired Oakland County Sheriff's investigator and polygraph examiner lied about a lie detector test to get them convicted.

Melvin and George DeJesus were convicted of the July 11, 1995 murder and rape of Margaret Midkiff, despite there being no DNA evidence linking them to the scene and witnesses who testified that the brothers were elsewhere when the attack occurred.

The brothers, who'd been friends with Midkiff and her family, were convicted solely on the testimony of convicted rapist Brandon Gohagen, 50, whose DNA was found at the crime scene.

Gohagen claimed the DeJesus brothers forced him to rape Midkiff but he didn't kill her. A jury believed him, and in 1997 the brothers were convicted of first-degree murder. In exchange for his testimony, Gohagen was convicted of second-degree murder and first-degree sexual assault and was sentenced to a maximum of 35 years.

The DeJesus brothers claimed they were innocent, prompting investigations by the Michigan Attorney General's Conviction Integrity Unit, the University of Michigan Innocence Clinic and the Western Michigan University-Cooley Law School Innocence Project. The investigations found that Gohagen was solely responsible for Midkiff's killing, along with 12 other sexual assaults in Pontiac from the 1990s, Attorney General's officials announced in March.

According to a 24-page lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, now-retired Oakland County Sheriff's deputy William Harvey and Chester Romatowski, a retired polygraph examiner, "agreed on a plan to have Gohagen 'pass' the polygraph examination so that the DeJesus brothers would be charged with first-degree murder," the lawsuit says.

Attempts to reach the two defendants Tuesday were not immediately successful.

Attorney Wolfgang Mueller, who represents the DeJesus brothers in the lawsuit, said during a Tuesday press briefing at his Novi office that he obtained through discovery the actual graphs of the polygraph test, and that Romatowski and Harvey lied in their summaries of the results.

"There's no way this was a mistake; Chet Romatowski and William Harvey were veteran investigators," Mueller said. "(Albert) Einstein doesn't get two plus two wrong unless he's trying to get it wrong."

Although polygraph test results aren't admissible in court, "Romatowski's fabricated test results gave the Oakland County prosecutor the assurance she needed to charge (the DeJesus brothers) with Margaret Midkiff's murder," the lawsuit said.

During Tuesday's press conference, George DeJesus, 45, said filing the lawsuit "opens up old wounds," but added: "Maybe it'll help us get answers. I want to know why this happened to us."

Melvin DeJesus, 49, said the money being sought in the lawsuit "is nothing compared to what I lost. I was never able to hold my daughter as a free person. We spent 25 years in prison just from some guy saying he was with us. That's terrible."

During a livestreamed March 22 hearing in which the brothers' sentences were vacated, Attorney General CIU director Robyn Frankel told the brothers: "On behalf of the state of Michigan, I offer you our deepest apologies for all the years that have been taken from you."

Frankel said during the hearing that the new evidence against Gohagen included DNA that surfaced in 2016 from the Aug. 29, 1994 murder and rape of Pontiac resident Rosalia Brantley, 22. Her body was shrouded in a window curtain and dumped in the city’s Hawthorne Park.

In 2017, Gohagen was convicted of first-degree murder in connection with Brantley's death and he was sentenced to life in prison.

Mueller said Tuesday: "It's important that the AG found that these two men are innocent. Not that there was just police misconduct during their case; they found that they were factually innocent."

ghunter@detroitnews.com

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