- Kirstin Lobato was arrested at age 18, wrongly convicted twice, and served nearly 16 years in a Nevada state prison for a 2001 murder she didn’t commit.
- Lobato was awarded more than $34 million after a civil trial jury found that Las Vegas police and two now-retired detectives fabricated evidence during their investigation and intentionally inflicted emotional distress on Lobato.
- Lobato was acquitted and released in 2017 after the Innocence Project and attorneys in Las Vegas took her case back to the state Supreme Court, showing evidence that Lobato was about 150 miles away from Las Vegas when the crime was committed.
A federal jury in Nevada has awarded more than $34 million to a woman who was arrested at age 18, wrongfully convicted twice and served nearly 16 years in a Nevada state prison for a 2001 murder she did not commit.
Kirsten Lobatowho is now 41 and uses the name Blaise, cried and hugged her lawyers after a judge read the verdict in U.S. District Court on Thursday, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
“It’s been an uphill battle with a lot of obstacles,” she told reporters. “And I’m glad it’s all finally done.”
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Lobato said she didn’t know if becoming a millionaire would mean years in prison, adding that she had “no idea what the rest of my life would be like.”
The civil trial jury found that Las Vegas police and two now-retired detectives fabricated evidence during their investigation and intentionally inflicted emotional distress on Lobato. The panel determined that Lobato should receive $34 million in compensatory damages from the department and $10,000 in compensatory damages from each former detective.
The detectives, Thomas Thowsen and James LaRochelle, and their attorney, Craig Anderson, declined to comment outside court. Anderson told U.S. District Judge Richard Boulware that he planned to file additional court documents after the verdict. Anderson said Friday that an appeal was “likely.”
Kirstin Lobato smiles outside the Lloyd George US Courthouse in Las Vegas with her attorneys, Elizabeth Wang and David Owens, on December 12, 2024. (KM Cannon/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP)
The department previously agreed to pay damages if the jury found in Lobato’s favor.
Lobato was 18 when she was interviewed by police without an attorney, arrested and charged with the murder of Duran Bailey in Las Vegas in July 2001. Bailey, who had been homeless, was found dead near a garbage bin with her neck slit, a cracked skull and missing persons. genitals.
No physical evidence or witnesses linked Lobato to the murder, and she claimed she never met Bailey. But police insisted she confessed in prison that she had killed a man who tried to rape her during a three-day methamphetamine binge.
Lobato was 19 when she was convicted of murder in 2002. The Nevada Supreme Court threw out that verdict and Lobato’s prison sentence in 2004 because her lawyers were unable to question a prosecutor who testified that Lobato made the confession in prison.
Lobato was tried again in 2006, convicted of manslaughter, mutilation and weapons charges, and sentenced to 13 to 45 years in prison.
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She was acquitted and released in late 2017 after the Innocence Project and attorneys in Las Vegas took her case back to the state Supreme Court. The judges said evidence showed Lobato was in her hometown of Panaca, Nevada, about 150 miles from Las Vegas, when Bailey was killed.
Last October, a state court judge spoke in Las Vegas issued a certificate declaring Lobato innocent of Bailey’s murder.
That action was challenged by Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill and Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson in a letter asking state Attorney General Aaron Ford to investigate how and why attorneys for Lobato obtained the declaration of innocence.
