A formerly incarcerated man is suing the city of Milwaukee and members of its police force, claiming officers conspired to have him wrongfully convicted of first-degree murder, which resulted in his being in prison for 18 years.
For close to two decades, Danny Wilber, an Oneida Nation citizen, maintained his innocence and pushed for his freedom. In 2021, a U.S. appeals court heard his petition. It overturned his conviction, stating that the evidence used to convict him of killing David Diaz on Jan. 31, 2004, was insufficient to keep him incarcerated.
On July 17, the 44-year-old man filed a civil rights lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
In the complaint obtained by Atlanta Black Star, Wilber claims that officers from the Milwaukee Police Department arrested him in February 2004 for Diaz’ killing but moved quickly to close the case by “pinning” the crime on him. He alleges that they fabricated evidence against him and hid evidence that could have proven his innocence.
Diaz was shot in the back of his head in his home during an after party at a home. Wilber, who was 24 at the time, was one of many other partygoers at the residence at the time of the 23-year-old’s death.
His lawyers stated the department neglected to investigate other possible suspects for Diaz’s death.
“I firmly believe that what the (Milwaukee Police Department) did to me was deliberate, systematic and meticulously orchestrated to frame and wrongfully convict an obviously innocent man,” a statement from Wilber read.
Lawyers contend that Wilber “spent much of his adult life in prison, separated from his family and friends and robbed of the most basic freedoms,” despite medical evidence showing he could not have shot Diaz based on the facts of the case.
“Despite the impossibility based on the physical and medical evidence that Plaintiff Wilber could have been the shooter, the police immediately focused on…
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