LANSING, MI (WTVB) – Branch County and the State of Michigan have been named as defendants in a suit filed by Tom Foley after he was first convicted and then found not guilty of killing his wife in February 2009.
The suit was filed in the Michigan Court of Claims by Foley’s attorney Thomas Schaeffer following the adoption of a state law last year which makes those who feel they were wrongfully imprisoned eligible to get $50,000 a year.
Foley was convicted of first degree murder in November 2009 and was ordered to serve a mandatory life in prison without parole sentence.
However in March 2010 Calhoun County Circuit Judge Conrad Sindt, who presided over the first trail, ordered a new trial based on new evidence after three new witnesses came forward following the guilty verdict. Those witnesses reported seeing cars in the driveway of the Foley home in Girard Township on the afternoon Dee Dee Foley’s body was discovered dead in the shower of the couple’s residence.
Sindt’s ruling was first upheld by the State Court of Appeals. The Michigan Supreme Court then declined to hear an appeal from then Branch County Prosecutor Terri Norris. A jury following the second trial in Branch County Circuit Court found Tom Foley not guilty in July 2011. He was released from custody and demanded that authorities reopen the murder investigation.
A Court of Claims judicial officer has been assigned to hear the case but according to the court’s online docket, a hearing date has not been scheduled yet.
