DC to Pay $16,650,000 to Man Wrongly Imprisoned for 27 Years
Police framed Donald Eugene Gates for the 1981 rape and murder of Catherine T. Schilling in Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C., and he was sentenced in 1982 to life in prison. In 2009, after Gates had spent 27 years behind bars for the crime, DNA evidence cleared him of the Georgetown University student's death. On Wednesday the District of Columbia agreed to pay Gates $16.65 million—$617,000 for every year he spent in prison.