Michigan man convicted of murder sues Hertz for failing to produce receipt that would’ve proved his innocence
(The AEGIS Alliance) – A Michigan man was found guilty of second-degree murder in 2016, however, he did not do it. Now, he’s taking legal action against the automobile rental company that kept the receipt which would’ve proven his innocence.
Herbert Alford spent nearly 5 years behind bars for the 2011 shooting fatality of Michael Adams prior to his conviction being overturned in 2020 and him being released.
Age 23 Adams was shot once in his back as he went through a parking area of a shopping center in Lansing, Michigan on October 18, 2011, the National Registry of Exonerations revealed. A witness supplied a license plate number, connected to an eco-friendly 2002 Dodge Durango registered to Willine Pentecost and also Adams’ mom described a Black male with braids called “Herb.”
Police stated that a source, Jessie Bridges, reported that he saw the shooting and recognized the shooter as being age 38 Herbert Alford Bridges would later recant his statement and also asserted that authorities had actually offered him $1,500 to wrongly link Alford to the crime.
The investigation waned after DNA evidence was proven to be useless, up until May 2015, when Gilbert Bailey, Pentecost’s son, was apprehended and also traded details on Alford’s location in exchange for dropping numerous charges.
On May 26, 2015, Alford was arrested and charged with murder, felon in possession of a gun as well as the use of a gun during the act of a felony.
But Alford’s attorneys repetitively firmly insisted that he was nowhere near the location at the time of Adams’ murder and rather went to Capital Region International Airport in Lansing, about 20 minutes away, renting out a vehicle from the Hertz terminal 6 minutes prior to the deadly shooting.
“If anybody has ever traveled Lansing from Pleasant Grove to the airport you know that is not possible to accomplish,” Alford’s attorney, Jamie White, informed WLNS. “You couldn’t even do it in a helicopter.”
Hertz, nevertheless, failed to hand over Alford’s receipts up until 2018, over a year after he was convicted, and 3 years after it was formally asked for Hertz to provide the receipts.
Ingham County Prosecuting Attorney Carol Siemon informed the Lansing State Journal in December that the proof from Hertz was a “key factor” in reversing the conviction.
Now, Alford is taking legal action against Hertz in a lawsuit for withholding the proof.
“I think they looked at his situation, saw that there was a man, an African-American man charged with murder and this just wasn’t worthy of their time,” White said to WLNS.
Hertz denied White’s claims that their hold-up was based on race.
“The characterizations that are being alleged are simply untrue. Most egregious is any claim that race or social-economic status had any bearing on our response or its timeliness,” a Hertz business representative said. “We take all requests for information pertaining to legal cases seriously. Furthermore, Hertz never solicits information about someone’s race or ethnicity.”
The company additionally stated it’s “deeply saddened” by the situation.
“While we were unable to find the historic rental record from 2011 when it was requested in 2015, we continued our good faith efforts to locate it,” spokesperson Lauren Luster said. “With advances in data search in the years following, we were able to locate the rental record in 2018 and promptly provided it.”
Kyle James Lee – The AEGIS Alliance – This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
