OLATHE — Kansas will pay $1.1 million to a Missouri man who spent nearly 17 years in prison for a robbery that he argued was committed by his doppelganger.
Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt announced Tuesday that a settlement had been reached with 42-year-old Richard Anthony Jones, of Kansas City, Missouri. Schmidt said Jones was the first to settle a payout under a new state law that provides compensation to people who are wrongly imprisoned. Jones also was granted a certificate of innocence.
Eyewitness testimony sent Jones to prison for an attack and robbery in the parking lot of a Walmart in Roeland Park, Kansas. No physical evidence linked Jones to the crime. He was freed after supporters found evidence that another man who looked just like him lived near the Walmart.
