“If the defendants had not ignored and disobeyed several court orders demanding that they present the documentation that eventually released Mr. Alford, he would not have spent more than 1,700 days in prison,” wrote Alford’s lawyers in a complaint obtained by CNN.
He was arrested in 2015 after a suspected drug offender “made a deal with the police” and provided information about Alford, according to the registry. He was convicted of second-degree murder in 2016.
Alford’s lawyers said they had requested records from Hertz that would corroborate Alford’s alibi. Hertz did not respond, they said, until 2018 – more than a year after a jury convicted Alford for murder, among other charges.
Records provided by Hertz in 2018 showed that Alford had rented a car minutes before Adams’ murder, which took place about 20 minutes away, Alford’s lawyer Jamie White told CNN.
Alford spent almost five years in prison before all charges against him were dismissed in February 2020. He was on bail from February to December 2020, according to the complaint.
But the years he spent in prison for a crime he didn’t commit could have been avoided, his lawyers said, if Hertz had provided the receipt when it was first requested.
Hertz says he tried to find the receipt in 2016
“Although we were unable to find the 2011 historic rental record when it was requested in 2015, we continue our efforts in good faith to locate it,” the spokesman said in a statement to CNN. “With advances in data research over the next few years, we were able to locate the rental record in 2018 and provide it promptly.”
Since his release in December, Alford has been struggling to adjust to life after his arrest, White said.
“He’s going through a few things right now,” he told CNN. “He’s trying to figure out the next move … and we hope that, you know, he’ll be back on track soon.”
Alford is seeking compensation in excess of $ 25,000, according to the complaint. But there is “no dollar value that can fix this,” said White.