Prosecutors exonerate Detroit man of murder more than 25 years later

DETROIT (AP) — A Detroit-area judge erased a 1999 murder conviction Tuesday of a man who was serving a life prison sentence after prosecutors acknowledged his confession was coerced by a rogue police officer.

In addition, recent DNA testing “further supports the lack of any evidence” connecting George Calicut Jr. to the murder of Virgie Perkins at her Detroit home, the Wayne County prosecutor's office and his lawyers said.

Calicut, 56, has been in prison for more than 25 years. He has long professed his innocence — there were no eyewitnesses or physical evidence against him — and said he never saw his purported confession until trial.

Clearing Calicut “reflects this office’s unwavering commitment to the integrity of convictions and the credibility of the system,” said Valerie Newman, head of the conviction integrity unit.

The Corrections Department said Calicut would likely be released from prison within hours.

He was represented by the Innocence Clinic at University of Michigan Law School. Cooley Innocence Project at Cooley Law School also had a role.

Calicut was accused of choking Perkins and cutting her neck while stealing money and a phone from her home in 1999. He admitted that he took a phone the next day from Perkins' son but said he grabbed it from a vehicle.

At trial, a Detroit homicide investigator, Barbara Simon, acknowledged that she wrote Calicut's alleged confession before he signed it. Calicut testified in his own defense and denied the statements but was nonetheless convicted of murder and automatically given a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

“Simon told Mr. Calicut, who had no prior interactions with police, that she could help him by creating a statement that would reduce the charge to manslaughter, which would allow him to get a bond and go home,” prosecutors and Calicut's attorneys said in a four-page agreement to have the conviction dismissed.

Simon, who's retired from Detroit police, could not be immediately reached for comment. A phone number was unanswered.

Detroit has spent millions of dollars settling lawsuits related to Simon's work as a homicide investigator.

Records show Calicut's trial prosecutor was Mike Cox, who later served as Michigan attorney general and is now a Republican candidate for governor. An email seeking comment about the exoneration was not immediately answered.