[clevfan]

2 win Jacobs Field bomb suit
Jury awards each $1 million for false accusation

Friday, November 10, 2006
James F. McCarty
Plain Dealer Reporter

The lives of three friends from Elyria were forever changed by a single foolish act during a Cleveland Indians game in 2002.

One of them went to prison for lighting an explosive device that rocked Jacobs Field. The other two won civil verdicts of $1 million each Thursday because they were falsely accused of taking part in the crime.

Clifton Oliver, 26, and Donald Krieger, 27, sued the city for malicious prosecution, false arrest and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

"We were all in agreement that the plaintiffs were wronged," said the jury's forewoman, Lori Adams of Berea, as the eight-member panel filed out of Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court.

Inside the courtroom, Oliver wept for joy and hugged Krieger's parents. Krieger is stationed with the Air Force in Anchorage, Alaska.

"This is a day we've waited four years for," said Oliver, who works as a car salesman in Vermilion.

"The money wasn't important. As long as the verdict came back that we were innocent bystanders, I would have been happy with whatever the amount of damages were," he said.

The jury awarded each plaintiff $400,000 in compensatory damages and $600,000 in punitive damages, plus attorneys' fees, which have not been determined.

Oliver, Krieger and Andrew Mendez went together to the game June 11, 2002. Mendez stayed in the upper deck while his buddies moved to box seats at ground level. An explosion went off in the top of the ninth inning. Investigators said the blast's shock waves could be felt 50 feet away.

Police arrested all three men on charges that they acted together in throwing the explosive, which burned four people.

Police held the trio in the city jail for four days. They were outfitted in paper coveralls, denied showers, soap and toothbrushes, and provided steel bunks without mattresses or pillows. They said they stuffed tissue into their ears to keep out the cockroaches.

Oliver and Krieger "were falsely accused, but what happened to them in jail compounded this miscarriage of justice," attorney John Spellacy told the jury.

His co-counsel, John Chambers, compared the jail stay to a "prisoner of war situation" used to squeeze confessions out of the suspects.

Prosecutors eventually dropped the charges against Oliver and Krieger after a security videotape at the ball park showed they were nowhere near Mendez at the time of the explosion.

A judge convicted Mendez of aggravated arson and assault, and sentenced him to prison, where he spent seven months.

Assistant city attorney Jerome Payne declined to comment after the verdict, and calls to City Hall were not returned.

Payne told the jury that police had good reasons to believe all three men were involved in the incident, and that the county prosecutor's office and Indians' security company should share in responsibility for the wrongful arrests of Oliver and Krieger.

Krieger's parents said the arrests haunted their family, but the verdicts provided closure.

"Everyone knew our son and Clifton didn't do these things," said Raymond Krieger, Donald's father. "They can hold their heads higher now."