Wrongfully convicted Ohioan awaits $45 million federal lawsuit payment
The Cincinnati Enquirer speaks with Dean Gillispie, an OIP exoneree, about compensation
Three years ago, Dean Gillispie of Fairborn won a $45 million federal lawsuit against Miami Township, a former police detective and others for actions that led to Gillispie’s wrongful imprisonment. The suit alleged that evidence was suppressed and eyewitness identifications were tainted in the 1991 case against Gillispie.
Gillispie, now 60, served 20 years behind bars before he was freed and his name cleared with the help of the Ohio Innocence Project at the University of Cincinnati, former Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro and Gillispie’s mother Juana Gillispie. He is still waiting for payment from Miami Township, reports the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Gillispie was released from prison in 2011, exonerated in 2017 and declared wrongfully imprisoned in 2021.Since the civil jury decision in 2022, the township has been accruing interest on the unpaid settlement. Miami Township officials told the Cincinnati Enquirer they can’t afford to pay the settlement.
Dean Gillispie, an Ohio Innocence Project exoneree, shown at a symposium about incarceration and art. Photo/UC Marketing + Brand.
The township appealed the settlement and in May 2025, a three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Gillispie and declined to lower the amount. Gillispie told the Enquirer he’s tired of waiting for compensation.
Since Gillispie’s release he’s been active volunteering and speaking in support of activities to free the wrongfully convicted. He has spoken at national symposiums about how he managed the marking of time for more than two decades behind bars for something he didn’t do.
Gillispie managed time through art and his work has been featured in several media publications He used discarded items to make scenes he dreamed about.
One striking example included making a model of his vision of traveling the legendary Route 66 highway crisscrossing America. One scene he constructed included a toaster-size trailer with a propane tank no bigger than your thumb during his incarceration.
Gillispie spread cigarette-pack foil across notebook cardboard, and used pins taken from the prison sewing shop to hold the whole structure together. The window curtains, made from used tea bags, are partially closed. A tiny sign on the trailer door reads, in nearly microscopic ink script: "gone fishing."
Read the Cincinnati Enquirer story online.
Learn more about Dean’s Gillispie case online.
Find out more about the work of the Ohio Innocence Project online.
Featured top image courtesy of Istock.
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