A man and woman who spent more than 17 years behind bars after being wrongfully convicted of a 2007 East Hollywood murder were declared factually innocent of the crime Tuesday.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge William Ryan granted the prosecution’s request for a finding of factual innocence for Charlotte Pleytez, now 38, and Lombardo Palacios, 33, who hugged each other shortly after the judge’s pronouncement.
The hearing came just over two months after their convictions were vacated and they were set free.
“It feels like the truth is finally out,” Pleytez said outside the downtown Los Angeles courtroom after Tuesday’s hearing. “It’s awful that I spent so much time in prison. I’m glad it was made right, that I got justice.”
Palacios said the factual innocence finding is “a good feeling.”
“Now my name is fully cleared,” he said.
Martha Carrillo, deputy in charge of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office’s Justice Conviction Review Unit, called it “very gratifying.”
“Ultimately as prosecutors and a prosecutor’s office, it’s about justice and seeing that the right person gets convicted of the crime. The evidence showed … these people are actually innocent,” Carrillo said.
She said an open investigation is underway into the March 28, 2007, killing of Hector Luis Flores.
The victim was fatally shot following a verbal altercation in a shopping center parking lot in the 5200 block of Sunset Boulevard. He was taken to a hospital, where he later died.
District Attorney Nathan Hochman — who appeared in court last December when Ryan ordered the immediate release of the two — said then that it was a “magical moment for justice.”
Investigators picked up Pleytez and Palacios from the prisons where they were being held in Central California so they could attend the hearing and be released from custody before Christmas, Hochman said in December.
“I owe a heartfelt apology to you, Mr. Palacios, and to you, Ms. Pleytez, for what you’ve gone through, for the suffering you’ve endured,” the district attorney told the two. “There’s no words that can truly describe what you have gone through, but I’m here to tell you today you’re here, you’re amazing people, you’re going to do amazing things in this world.”
The district attorney vowed that “we will not rest until the true perpetrators of that murder are brought to justice,” and said that his office will “learn from the lessons the best we can on this case to make sure we don’t repeat any of the mistakes” and wind up with people who are wrongly imprisoned.
The renewed investigation by the District Attorney’s Office into the case concluded a process that began under Hochman’s predecessor, former District Attorney George Gascón.
In an announcement in October, Gascón cited what he called “coercive investigations” by law enforcement of Palacios, who was then 15 and insisted for nearly two hours that he was innocent before being falsely told there was a video showing he was the killer.
Palacios did not accurately describe what happened or what type of weapon was used because “he was never actually there,” Gascón said then, noting that Pleytez steadfastly maintained her innocence while being interrogated by police.
Hochman said in December that eyewitness identifications and other “circumstantial evidence” led to the arrests of Pleytez and Palacios.
A jury convicted the two in October 2009 of first-degree murder, and each was sentenced to 50 years to life in prison — convictions and sentences that were later affirmed on appeal.
“The DA’s Office asserts that, following a detailed review and analysis of the investigation and prosecution of the 2009 convictions, there is no evidence to suggest that any of the investigating officers, responding officers, or prosecutors involved in the case acted inappropriately, unethically, or illegally in performing their duties in the investigation and prosecution of this case given the applicable case law and state of the evidence at that time,” Hochman said then.
Pleytez’s attorney, Matthew Lombard, said it was “nice to see justice served.”