(CN) - A Puerto Rican man who spent nearly two decades in prison before being cleared of murder charges claims in court that prosecutors and police paid off witnesses to testify against him to frame him for the rape and murder of a 21-year-old woman.
In a federal lawsuit filed in Puerto Rico on Sept. 23, Nelson Ruiz Colon claims prosecutors engaged in an elaborate scheme to coax witnesses into testifying that he murdered 21-year-old Glorimar Perez.
Perez's body was found on Jobos Beach in Isabela, Puerto Rico in July 1988. Ruiz and a pair of alleged conspirators were arrested for the murder in 1993. When Ruiz was first incarcerated on the bogus murder charge, the lawsuit claims, he had a newborn baby and was living a content life, helping his father with a family hardware business.
Ruiz says that even after the coerced witnesses recanted their testimony about his involvement in the gruesome killing, he remained behind bars for years on end.
One of the witnesses, Luis Martinez Rivera, purportedly admitted his testimony was a total fabrication shortly after Ruiz was convicted in 1994. Martinez had been a key element in the prosecution's case, as he had testified that he was at the scene of the murder with Ruiz and was paid to help conceal the crime.
According to the National Registry of Exonerations, Martinez admitted that his account of the attack -- in which he claimed to have seen Ruiz and the criminal co-defendants punching, biting and raping the victim -- was a lie.
The lawsuit says Martinez recanted his testimony under oath, as did another witness for the prosecution, Heriberto Guzman. Guzman had contributed to the prosecution's case by testifying second-hand that after the murder, Martinez told him about the crime and Ruiz's participation.
Prosecutors placed Guzman in a hotel and authorized a $1,500 payment to him "as part of the amenities he received in exchange for his testimony," the lawsuit alleges.
A head investigator for the Puerto Rican police -- identified as defendant Ramon Perez Crespo -- "offered witness Heriberto Guzman $25,000" in exchange for his false testimony, the complaint claims.
It goes on to assert Perez also offered Luis money to travel to the U.S. mainland when he suggested he would tell the public that the criminal case was fabricated.
Allegedly, the two witnesses were pliable to pressure from prosecutors, as they had been arrested on unrelated theft charges prior to their participation in the murder case.
The lawsuit states: "Although both witnesses indicated that they had no knowledge of the facts surrounding the murder, they both agreed to cooperate not only because of the pressure being exercised by several of the defendants herein but also due to the offers of immunity that extended to their criminal responsibility in other cases."
Defendant Andres Rodriguez Elias -- a chief prosecutor in the criminal case -- intimated that he could put Guzman and his wife in jail and deliver his children to the Department of Social Services if Guzman did not provide testimony against Ruiz and the other suspects in the criminal case, the lawsuit claims.
The lawsuit claims Rodriguez and his fellow prosecutors took the coerced witnesses to the crime scene and coached them on the details of the murder since they had no real knowledge of the crime.