A Minnesota man freed from prison last year is now suing a former medical examiner and others, alleging they fabricated evidence and withheld information that could have exonerated him.
Thomas Rhodes, 64, was freed from prison one year ago after spending nearly 25 years in prison for allegedly murdering his wife, the Star Tribune reported. Last Friday, he filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Minnesota, seeking unspecified damages.
“I have gained my freedom,” Rhodes said in a statement, according to the outlet. “I now look forward to justice.”
Rhodes’ lawsuit accuses former Ramsey County Medical Examiner Michael McGee of providing false testimony about how Rhodes’ wife, Jane, died, as well as fabricating false conclusions regarding her autopsy. Rhodes also accuses now-deceased Kandiyohi County Attorney Boyd Beccue and an investigator who worked on the case of fabricating and withholding evidence.
Rhodes and his wife had gone out for a late evening boat ride in July 1996. Neither person was wearing a life jacket, and at some point, Jane fell into the water after losing her balance. Rhodes reportedly searched for his wife frantically, but could not find her in the dark. The next day, two fishermen found Jane’s body on the shore.
The Kandiyohi County coroner didn’t have enough experience with drowning victims, the Associated Press reported, so McGee performed the examination of Jane’s body. McGee initially listed Jane’s manner of death as “pending investigation,” a status that remained for five months, until McGee and Beccue met in what Rhodes’ attorneys said was an improper private meeting that prosecutors used to “attempt to influence the determination as to the cause and manner of death.”
Beccue allegedly provided “circumstantial facts that were completely unrelated to the medical or scientific evidence,” according to Rhodes’ attorneys. These included marital problems between Rhodes and Jane and the “perceived” interpretation that Rhodes couldn’t be sure where Jane fell overboard on the night she died.
McGee then changed Jane’s manner of death to “homicide,” and he and prosecutors began arguing that Rhodes struck his wife in the neck and pushed her overboard before running her over with the boat. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
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In 2021, 25 years into his sentence, Minnesota’s Attorney General Keith Ellison launched the state’s Conviction Review Unit. The first case it took on was Rhodes’, and soon discovered that Beccue’s office never turned over a transcript of an interview with McGee, who had said in it that he wasn’t sure how many times Jane was hit after she fell overboard.
In addition, 10 independent forensic pathologists disagreed with the homicide conclusion, finding no evidence that Jane was hit in the neck, or that she was hit by the boat, or any evidence she was pushed over at all.
While Rhodes’ sentence was vacated, he was essentially forced to enter an “Alford plea” to be released from jail. In addition to murder charges, he was charged with second-degree manslaughter because, prosecutors argued, the boat he drove was small and unstable, and neither he nor his wife were wearing life jackets even though he knew Jane wasn’t a good swimmer. By entering the Alford plea, Rhodes admitted there was enough evidence to convict him of the lesser charges, while still maintaining his innocence. Had he not entered the plea, he would likely still be in prison.
McGee has been under fire for his conduct in other cases, including one that resulted in a death penalty being reduced to life in prison, and another where McGee’s false testimony led to a father being wrongly convicted for the murder of his infant child.