Innocent dad wrongfully jailed 17 years for crime committed by lookalike seeks over $1 million in compensation
An innocent man who spent 17 years in prison for a crime committed by his doppelganger is now seeking $1 million in compensation from the state. Richard Jones, now 42-years-old, was wrongly convicted of aggravated robbery in 1999 after a man who looked like him stole a phone from a woman outside a Walmart in Roeland Park, Kansas City. According to the New York Times, two other people who saw the attack described the culprit as a "light-skinned black man" or a "dark-skinned Hispanic" with his hair "pulled back" and tied in cornrows. The getaway car was then traced to a man who said that he and his friends had picked up a man who they barely knew as "Rick." The unfortunate coincidence that his lookalike also happened to share his name had all but sealed Jones' fate.