By PENNY BROWN ROBERTS

A Baton Rouge man who spent more than 16 years in Angola after a wrongful rape conviction is suing the city and several police officers.

In a lawsuit filed late Tuesday in U.S. District Court, Gene Bibbins, 47, and his daughter, Esclamonda White, claim investigators fabricated and hid evidence. The suit also alleges police lied on the stand in order to frame Bibbins for the 1986 rape of a 13-year-old girl in a south Baton Rouge housing project.

Bibbins seeks unspecified damages, including lost wages. He is working two jobs, according to his lawyer -- one of them at a recycling plant.

Bibbins was released in December 2002 from Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, and his conviction was overturned in March.

The suit also alleges the Baton Rouge Police Department's practice "of failing to properly investigate serious crimes" resulted in the wrongful conviction.

"What we'd like to do in this case and in any case where anyone innocent is convicted of a crime that includes misconduct of police officers is get to the root of how that happened," said Nick Brustin, a New York attorney working on the case.

"We'll be looking at policies and procedures and supervision, and hopefully that process will tell us what went wrong," Brustin said. "Ideally, the Police Department and its governing entities will take it upon themselves to make the necessary changes."

City-Parish Attorney Mike Ponder said he had not seen the lawsuit and "would reserve comment until I can see the allegations contained in the petition and check the facts."

Bibbins was the first inmate to win access to biological evidence under Louisiana's post-conviction DNA testing statute. He was freed after two rounds of testing confirmed he did not rape the victim.

The lawsuit was necessary, attorneys say, because Louisiana offers no compensation for people wrongfully convicted of a crime. At least 17 states and the District of Columbia have such measures, but attempts by the Louisiana Legislature to pass a statute last year failed.

Neither Bibbins nor White responded Wednesday to a request for an interview relayed through their New Orleans attorney.

Bibbins was arrested in June 1986 after a 13-year-old girl was raped in her bed while staying in the top-floor bedroom of an aunt's apartment.

About 2 a.m., a man removed a box fan from the window, climbed inside and raped her at knifepoint. On his way out, he took a Sony portable radio with a broken handle.

The lawsuit alleges the girl initially told police the rapist had long curly hair and was wearing blue jeans.

An hour after the rape, police stopped Bibbins, who had short cropped hair and was wearing a red-and-white striped shirt, cut-off gray sweat pants and an earring in his left ear.

He was carrying the broken radio, which he said he found on his way to the store to buy cigarettes.

The lawsuit claims Baton Rouge police fabricated reports to make it appear the girl consistently described her attacker as having short hair, wearing a red-and-white striped shirt and wearing an earring in his left ear, and never disclosed her initial description.

It also claims a fingerprint expert gave false testimony at the trial that prints on the box fan were unreadable.

A later review of the prints shows they excluded Bibbins as the rapist, according to the lawsuit.

A serologist also "falsely reported" the value of evidence when she testified the perpetrator and Bibbins shared the same blood type, found in less than 7 percent of the population, the lawsuit claims.

Despite hearing conflicting evidence about the girl's description of her attacker, the jury deliberated less than an hour before convicting Bibbins.

"Mr. Bibbins' wrongful conviction was not an accident, but rather the result of the individual defendants' reckless and intentional misconduct," the lawsuit claims. "Rather than properly investigating the crime and finding the real perpetrator, the defendants manipulated and molded the available evidence to ensure Mr. Bibbins' conviction."

Bibbins is also being represented by Barry Scheck, a member of the legal team that successfully defended football legend O.J. Simpson against murder charges.

Scheck is co-director of the Innocence Project at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York, which helped Bibbins get the post-conviction DNA test.

Bibbins' Baton Rouge attorney, Bruce Macmurdo, said his client still is adjusting to life after prison.

"It was a big transition for him after getting out of prison after 16 years," Macmurdo said. "He's doing pretty well, considering everything."
 

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