Texas man, George Powell, featured in Netflix's Exhibit A has bond set to $500,000 in spite of being wrongfully convicted
KILLEEN, TEXAS: After spending 11 years wrongfully incarcerated, a Killeen man is now expected to pay half a million dollars in bail. The 46-year-old George Powell III was transferred from his state prison unit in Gatesville to Bell County jail on Monday after his armed robbery conviction was overturned earlier this summer. Powell was sentenced to 28 years in prison in 2009 for an armed robbery in June 2008 at a 7-Eleven store in Killeen, but had insisted he was innocent.
Innocent Project of Texas Executive Director and Lead Counsel on Powell's case Mike Ware, who was working on his exoneration said that it is an amount that Powell cannot pay. "Imagine spending more than a decade of your life wrongfully convicted in prison, a state court ruling in your favor that you should be released, having no money because you’ve been in prison for so long, and having bail set in an amount you cannot possibly make," he said in a statement.
The Powell case was featured in a Netflix Original documentary series 'Exhibit A' that premiered at the end of June. Powell, who was an aspiring rap artist at the time would sell homemade CD's on the street, making him a "thorn" in the police's side, the documentary said. He was convicted of robbing a convenience store in spite of discrepancies in the case, including surveillance video and testimony by a jailhouse informant.
A hearing has been scheduled by IPTX for Powell to reduce the bail amount on September 25, 2019, at 1:30pm. Ware said that setting a bail so high is "no different than denying him bail completely." He said, "He does not have any money. And he’s hardly a flight risk. He has family in the area, he is from here, and is ready to get his life back together."
Tamara Parsons, George's fiance, has set up a GoFundMe page to help him get back on his feet. "George has nothing: No clothes. No car. No job. Nothing. Let's all come together to help fund his transition home, and get George back on his feet," it says.