After nearly 18 years in prison for L.A. murder he didn’t commit, man gets $907,340
Serving a life sentence for a murder he did not commit, Jofama Coleman studiously avoided calendars. It was just too upsetting to contemplate the passage of months and then years deprived of freedom and separated from his young daughter.
“One way I was able to get through the time, I actually didn’t even think about the days. Every day was the same,” he said, recalling stretches when his birthday passed without his notice.
On Thursday, Coleman sat in the front row of a Sacramento hearing room as the official tally of his time behind bars was read out: 6,481 days. The state Victim Compensation Board then voted to translate those nearly 18 years into a payout to Coleman of $907,340, under a law that provides exonerees with $140 for each day of wrongful incarceration.
The two men were convicted of a murder they did not commit. But how could they prove their innocence from behind bars? How could they be exonerated without help?
“My situation either makes you bitter or better,” a smiling Coleman told the board, adding, “although I went through some very tough times, I think I ultimately triumphed.”
Two other men were also approved for compensation at Thursday’s hearing. Ronald Velasquez Jr. and Abraham Villalobos were erroneously convicted in the 2000 killing of a teenager in Downey. The man believed to be the real killer was slain the year after the murder, information that surfaced in a re-investigation of the case in recent years. Both men were declared factually innocent in a March hearing in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
Velasquez, who spent 23 years in prison, was awarded $1.2 million, while Villalobos, who spent more than 15 years in prison, will receive $788,060. He was deported to Mexico after his release. His attorney, Joseph Trigilio, of the Loyola Law School Project for the Innocent, said at the hearing, “This brings him some measure of justice.”
Velasquez said in an interview that he was grateful for the money, but added, “Is it fair? It’s not giving me back family members I lost, the time I lost with my family, all the things I missed.”
The exonerated do not have to pay state or federal taxes on the compensation. It also does not bar them from pursuing civil suits against law enforcement for mishandling the investigations.
Coleman was convicted of the 2003 drive-by shooting of a teenager in South L.A. As The Times chronicled earlier this year, he labored for years in the prison library in Corcoran to prove his innocence and later got assistance from a volunteer, a schoolteacher from Topanga Canyon. Their work led to the exonerations of both Coleman and another man convicted in the murder, Abel Soto.
Judge sets man free for murder he didn’t commit afters 23 years in prison, second man also factually innocent in killing
The board previously awarded Soto $909,720.
Coleman, 41, was incarcerated for 19 years, but he did not receive payment for the entire period because he was also serving time for an unrelated assault charge.
He is enrolled at UC Riverside with plans to become an attorney for the wrongfully convicted. His daughter, Jocelyne, born after his arrest, is also a college student. He said he hopes to use the money to support her, buy a home and replace the breakdown-prone 1988 Corvette he’s been driving since his release.
While appreciative of the compensation, which is not available in many states, Coleman said, “it doesn’t measure up for sure. I lost a great deal, you know? And, I mean, I still kind of have to live with the pain of what I went through.”
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