by Benny G. Powell Jr.
I have been unjustly persecuted and imprisoned by law enforcement in Southern California for over 43 years now. This evil that has been continually perpetuated against me by members of the Los Angeles Police Department since 1974!
I want to reveal to the public the years of persecution and false imprisonment I have been forced to endure by the certain LAPD detectives who had previously framed me for the murder of an off-duty deputy sheriff in Los Angeles. I, along with my then co-defendant, Clarence Chance were convicted in 1975 on false evidence fabricated by these LAPD detectives for the sole purpose of gaining our conviction even though these detectives knew we were innocent of committing this offense.
In 1992, through the help and assistance of an innocence project based in Princeton, New Jersey, the Centurion Ministries, we were able to prove our innocence through a petition for writ of habeas corpus after serving 17 plus years in false imprisonment.
The day of our release, the then chief of police in Los Angeles called a press conference wherein he refuted the findings of the Superior Court judge who granted our exoneration and release. The Los Angeles City Council called for his immediate resignation or face being fired for his statements to the public through the press.
I want to reveal to the public the years of persecution and false imprisonment I have been forced to endure by the certain LAPD detectives who had previously framed me for the murder of an off-duty deputy sheriff in Los Angeles.
Regardless, the chief’s statements caused a vendetta against me to develop in various law enforcement circles who believed this chief’s statements against our exoneration. I was the more outspoken of Mr. Chance and myself, so they focused more attention of their hatred and anger on me.
I was soon thereafter shot five times by a Caucasian but otherwise unknown assailant in Phoenix, Arizona, and the Phoenix Police Department refused to investigate, locate or prosecute this person who attempted to take my life. A friend of mine from high school who was, at that time, a high ranking official within the Phoenix Police Department told me that the person who had attempted to take my life was a plain clothes LAPD officer who had been following me to take my life.
Both Mr. Chance and I sued the city and county of Los Angeles for wrongful conviction and false imprisonment, and we both were awarded multi-million-dollar settlements. I was awarded $3.9 million, allegedly, and was to have received the bulk of this payment July 12, 1993. I was shot on June 9, 1993.
On July 19, 1993, I received a phone call at my home in Scottsdale, Arizona, that my settlement had been paid to the Law Office of Cary W. Medill in Beverly Hills, California, and some of this payment had been wired to my account at my bank in Scottsdale.
I went to my bank in Scottsdale to see what had been sent me, but no money had been wired to my account from Medill’s law office. As I left the bank I was arrested on a felony warrant arising out of Riverside County California alleging 22 counts of sexual assault on a female.
Once I arrived back in California, the counts were raised to 30. As the enclosed synopsis intimates, I was convicted on the word of this Caucasian German woman with no physical evidence to support her allegations.
All the medical and scientific evidence supported my assertions that there was no sexual contact or encounter between this woman and myself. The entire claims of sexual assaults are made up and false!
The law enforcement, the prosecution and my so-called defense lawyers all knew the complainant was lying because of the lack of any supporting evidence, which included a DNA testing report that had been requested by the prosecution but withheld and hidden from myself and the jury during the time of trial. It was also hidden from me during my direct appeal by my so-called appellate lawyer and was not revealed to me until a grant of a motion for evidence in the state’s possession in the United States District Court in 1999.
It was then that I discovered that my trial defense lawyers and my appellate lawyers knew of this DNA testing and had possession of the testing report, which is attached to the enclosed manuscript. These privately retained lawyers who were supposed to be representing me were actually in collusion with law enforcement to ensure I was placed back into prison, albeit falsely.
Since my reimprisonment I have been able to discover much more evidence which reveals that law enforcement and the Riverside District Attorney’s Office knew all along that the complainant was lying about any sexual assault and only used the accuser to facilitate their vendetta and place me back into prison, since their plot to murder me didn’t work.
I am seeking assistance and support from the public, especially the Black community, as this continued persecution of me reflects the historic daily persecution and terrorism of Black men and women in their daily lives all over this nation. The LAPD detective team that framed Chance and myself had a 100 percent conviction rate in the Black community.
It’s a shame that we don’t have a national Black Folks Innocence Project. We should have a National Association for the Advancement of Black People, the NAABP!
I am seeking assistance and support from the public, especially the Black community, as this continued persecution of me reflects the historic daily persecution and terrorism of Black men and women in their daily lives all over this nation.
I want to expose the systematic incarceration of Black folks on trumped up charges for the purposes of economic gain from the lucrative business of legalized slavery in the penal colony to clearing society of unwanted Blacks, especially the Black Man, as the rulers prepare to engage in the universal conflict known in the Holy Writings as Armageddon!
Black people in this nation are in a very precarious position as an endangered species, while many of us are not paying attention but distracted by crack and gangster rap, and our million dollar entertainers are spending their time and money on sport and play, refusing to invest in any viable industry to benefit the national interests of Black people such as food, shelter and clothing.
Soon the parable of the ant and the grasshopper will come into full focus in understanding the seriousness of the times in which we now live. Time is running out.
Send our brother some love and light: Bennie Powell, J-49827, Mule Creek SP A1-150, P.O. Box 409020, Ione CA 95640.