'They didn't want to believe the truth': Freed pair speak out on 17 years of wrongful imprisonment

LOS ANGELES — On her first night as a free woman in 17 years, Charlotte Pleytez couldn't sleep.

Pleytez was 20 years old and pregnant when she and another suspect, 15-year-old Lombardo Palacios, were arrested and charged with the killing of Hector Flores in East Hollywood back in 2007. The two were wrongfully convicted of first-degree murder in 2009 and sentenced to 50 years to life in prison.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge William Ryan formally overturned the pair's convictions Friday, citing new evidence that pointed to other suspects. Pleytez and Palacios were released from prison that evening.

"I just want to say how truly happy I am and how blessed I am to be standing here free after 17 years spent in a life sentence out in front of me for something I didn't do," Pleytez said at a news conference Monday.

But she also described a nagging fear wrought by years of wrongful imprisonment. On her first night home from prison, Pleytez said, she was consumed by "sheer panic" and fear that "they're going to come after me again."

Neither Pleytez nor Palacios were at the scene of the crime or involved in any way, and the eyewitness accounts that identified them as suspects were determined to be inaccurate, according to a news release from the district attorney's office.

Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman apologized to both Pleytez and Palacios on Monday.

"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," Hochman said at the news conference. "There's no words that can truly describe what you have gone through."

Palacios described his release as "a miracle before Christmas."

"I'm still trying to process it, and I'm just very happy," he said.

Advocates from the California Innocence Project worked alongside the conviction review unit of the district attorney's office to reassess the case, Hochman said.

"When we determine that a conviction no longer has confidence, we need to move as expeditiously as possible to get the people who have been wrongfully convicted out of prison immediately," said the district attorney, who took office at the start of December.

He said authorities "will not rest until the true perpetrators of that murder are brought to justice." New evidence in the case that "has also led us in a direction of who the true perpetrators are" is currently under investigation.

"We will learn from the lessons as best we can from this case to make sure we don't repeat any of the mistakes and have another situation where people get imprisoned who shouldn't," Hochman said.

He noted the district attorney's office is investigating "a number of" convictions, alongside advocates from the California Innocence Project.

Investigators at the office's conviction review unit "work incredibly diligently, and I think you will see in the future more cases coming about like this," he said.

'Coercive investigations'

Pleytez' and Palacios' legal nightmare traces back to March 2007, when Flores was fatally shot in a parking lot, according to the news release from Hochman's office.

"Eyewitness identifications and other circumstantial evidence" led to the pair's arrest, the news release said.

The district attorney's predecessor, George Gascón, had called for the pair's exoneration, citing "coercive investigations" of Palacios, CNN affiliate WABC reported. The then-teenager insisted he was innocent for almost two hours before police falsely told him there was a video showing he was the killer, according to WABC.

Palacios eventually said he was there and that he had fired shots into the air, according to an October news release from the district attorney's office. The statements weren't presented to the jury, and Palacios later recanted.

On Monday, Palacios described feeling "very alone" and "abused" during his eight-hour interrogation when he was 15.

"They didn't want to believe the truth, that I was innocent," he said.

California has since changed its laws regarding juvenile interrogations, Hochman said. Last year, the state legislature passed a bill that prohibits using deception during interrogations of people under 17 years old.

Still, with the Palacios case, "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," the district attorney's office said in its news release.

Pleytez, meanwhile, maintained her innocence throughout the investigation, according to the October news release. She was two months pregnant when she was arrested and gave birth in handcuffs in county jail.

'I worry still about the system'

Pleytez said she and Palacios were both from "poor families" with limited resources to fight their legal battles.

"I'm sure that someone from a family with resources could have fought it better. That doesn't seem right," she said.

While she was in prison, Pleytez said, whenever she heard about an exoneration, she felt two emotions.

"One was frustration: Why them? Why not me? I'm innocent. I felt like shouting it," she said.

"But the other feeling was hope, hope that maybe one day it could happen. It took a long time. Seventeen and a half years is a long time, but it did happen," Pleytez said.

"It's some kind of Christmas miracle, and I'm just filled with gratitude that it really did happen to me."

Now, Pleytez hopes other innocent people who might be stuck in prison get to experience freedom soon.

"I'm so grateful for the system that exonerated us, but I worry still about the system that convicted us in the first place," she said. "There are people deserving of exonerations out there, and I hope they will someday be able to stand here and express their thanks just like I am."

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