LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A Kentucky woman who was charged in a strangling death as a teen and later pardoned by the governor has filed a federal lawsuit.
In it, she says she was wrongly accused of the murder.
Johnetta Carr says Louisville police investigators coerced her testimony after she was arrested at age 16 in 2006.
Carr was sentenced to 20 years in prison and was paroled in 2009. Former Kentucky Governor pardoned her in 2019.
"Matt Bevin's phone call, when he told me that, I started crying because I finally felt like my voice was being heard," Carr said during an announcement about the lawsuit.
The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in Louisville. The victim, Planes Adolphe, was found strangled at a Louisville apartment complex.
Officers fabricated evidence and coerced her co-defendant and jailhouse informants, the lawsuit states.
No DNA tied her to the crime.
The full copy of the lawsuit Johnetta Carr v. City of Louisville is available here.