After 20 years in prison, woman says she had to settle for "pittance"
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Jane Dorotik's 20-plus-year battle for justice after being convicted of murdering her husband ended this month with a settlement from San Diego County of just under $500,000.
Why it matters: That's far less than the $20 million Dorotik was hoping for. In her first interview since the settlement was announced, she tells Axios that the San Diego County District Attorney's Office used "threats" to make her accept the offer.
- The DA's office denies the allegation.
Context: The murder case against Dorotik used dated forensic methods like analyzing blood spatters and tire tracks, which her legal team said are pseudoscience.
Catch up quick: Dorotik's husband, Bob, went for a run in Valley Center on Feb. 13, 2000. His body was found near the road the next morning.
- Dorotik was arrested and convicted and spent 20 years in prison.
- The Innocence Project took up her case, a judge vacated her conviction and she was released in 2020.
- Dorotik then filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against San Diego County for what she said was a botched investigation and police misconduct.
Between the lines: Dorotik tells Axios the DA's office threatened to bring her to trial again or investigate her daughter if she didn't accept its lower offer, a claim the DA's office denies.
- Dorotik's daughter Claire was floated as another possible suspect in her original trial, though she was never charged.
- Dorotik is now 79 and says the DA's office used her age against her.
- "The DA's office was saying to my lawyers that even if you carry it all the way to trial and win at trial, what we're going to immediately do is turn around and appeal, and we'll keep it tied up for 10 years, and by the time it's ever settled, she'll be dead," she tells Axios.
The other side: DA spokesperson Tanya Sierra said in a statement to Axios that Dorotik's claim that the DA's office was threatening to investigate her daughter if she didn't take the settlement is "completely false."
- Sierra said the allegations in Dorotik's lawsuit are "just that — allegations."
- "There were absolutely no admissions of wrongdoing by the District Attorney, nor were there any findings of prosecutorial misconduct attributed to the prosecutors who handled the case," she said.
Reality check: The Innocence Project doesn't have data on the average settlement for wrongful imprisonment, but there are some recent examples.
- Maurice Hastings, who was exonerated after 38 years in California prison, won a $25 million settlement.
- Craig Coley, who spent 40 years in prison, won a $21 million settlement.
Friction point: Dorotik says she couldn't face the stress of another trial and neither could her daughter.
- "So I just basically threw in the towel and said, 'Screw it, let's get whatever pittance we can get out of them and make it be over,'" she says.
What's next: Dorotik does not have a gag order as part of the settlement and says she's in talks with ghostwriter Kay Diehl on a book and a movie "that exposes what's wrong with this crazy system."