Connecticut man paid $900,000 for wrongful imprisonment

By Richard Weizel MILFORD, Conn. (Reuters) - The state of Connecticut on Tuesday awarded $900,000 to a man released from prison in 2012 when DNA tests proved he was wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for more than four years for kidnapping and sexual assault. Hubert Thompson, 47, is the second person made such a payment by a state commission created by the legislature in 2008 to compensate people who were wrongly imprisoned for violent crimes. "Mr. Thompson was wrongfully convicted and was labeled a sex offender," Claims Commissioner J. Paul Vance said in Tuesday's decision. "While this decision attempts to compensate Mr. Thompson for the time that he was wrongfully imprisoned, it is a difficult process to place a dollar amount on the time that he lost or to put a price on what he endured." Thompson was convicted in 1998 on charges of sexual assault and kidnapping after the victim of the crime picked his photo out of a group of possible suspects, said his attorney, William Koch. Thompson had served prison time on drug and weapons convictions. Koch said when Thompson insisted he was innocent of the rape and kidnapping charges, new DNA tests were run and proved another man committed the crime. That person, Koch said, "bears an uncanny resemblance" to Thompson. "This is a fair award and will give my client a chance for a new life," Koch said Tuesday. A Superior Court judge sentenced him to 12 years in prison. In January, the same state commission awarded $6 million to another man, Kenneth Ireland, who was exonerated after DNA tests proved he had served 21 years for a rape and murder he did not commit. (Editing by Scott Malone and Bill Trott)