He spent “over 1,700 days incarcerated” despite being innocent
A 47-year-old man from Michigan is suing Hertz after spending nearly five years in prison for a murder he did not commit.
Herbert Alford was convicted of second-degree murder in 2016 and sent to prison, but always insisted he was innocent.
The murder of 23-year-old Michael Adams took place in Lansing, Michigan, but Alford said that a Hertz car rental receipt from Lansing airport would prove that he approx. 8 miles away from the murder when it took place in 2011.
The car rental company, Hertz, finally handed over the documents to the court in 2018, after Alford had already spent years in prison.
Alford’s lawyer, Jamie White, said that they contacted Hertz for the receipt two years before the car rental company gave the all-important documents to the court.
Alford filed a lawsuit against Hertz earlier this week for failing to bring the documents to the attention of the court in a timely manner.
His lawyer said: “Had the defendants not ignored and disobeyed numerous court orders requiring them to produce the documentation that eventually freed Mr. Alford, he would not have spent over 1,700 days incarcerated.”
Jamie White told WLNS-TV: “There is no question that [Alford] would have avoided going to prison had they produced this documentation.”
A spokesperson for Hertz said that the company was ‘deeply saddened’ to hear about Alford’s experience.
They said: “While we were unable to find the historic rental record from 2011 when it was requested in 2015, we continued our good faith efforts to locate it.
“With advances in data search in the years following, we were able to locate the rental record in 2018 and promptly provided it.”
The charges against Alford were dropped last year.
