The legal team of Fredrico Lowe-Bey recently met with St. Louis Circuit Attorney Gore and George W. Draper III, head of the Conviction Integrity Unit, to discuss the elements of the wrongful conviction stemming from a local 1988 rape. After the discussion, Gore agreed to review the case.
Lowe-Bey’s team is composed of Centurion Ministries (CM), a New Jersey-based nonprofit that works on wrongful convictions, the Organization for Black Struggle (OBS) and veteran criminal attorney Rick Sindel Esq. In 2004, CM teamed up with OBS who had already been working on the case for several years. The team first worked together on the wrongful murder case of Ellen Reasonover who was exonerated in 1999.
The most damning evidence is the independently tested DNA which excluded Lowe-Bey.
Fredrico Lowe-Bey believes he was targeted by two St. Louis officers who set him up for the rape. Officers Rubin Haman and James Long, first to respond to the crime scene, were the same police who set up Lowe-Bey on trumped up drug charges. He was acquitted by a jury of the charges, but this fact was prohibited from being introduced at the rape trial.
The rape victim maintained that Lowe-Bey had “scary” freckles; Lowe-Bey does not have freckles. The most damning evidence is the independently tested DNA which excluded Lowe-Bey. The rape victim has since died, leaving a travesty of justice behind for a new circuit attorney to sort out.
“Fredrico’s conviction happened at a time of known corruption by police and the prosecutor’s office,” said Jamala Rogers, OBS spokesperson. “Time is not on our time for a new trial because key players in the case are dead and memories have faded. We believe justice for Fredrico at this point is to vacate the sentence and set him free.”
OBS has worked with Centurion Ministries and the Innocence Project on several wrongful convictions that lead to exonerations such as the cases of Joseph Amrine, Reggie Griffin, Darryl Burton, Lamar Johnson and several others.