Willie T. Donald’s Settlement After 24 Years in Prison

Willie T. Donald, who spent nearly 24 years in Indiana prisons for a 1992 Gary robbery and murder he did not commit, settled his federal civil rights lawsuit against the City of Gary and two former police officers in late 2025. The parties told the court on October 30, 2025 that they had reached an agreement, and U.S. District Judge Philip Simon dismissed the case on January 2, 2026.¹ The dollar figure was not confirmed in court records, but a local Gary outlet reported in March 2026 that the city agreed to pay $12 million.²

Who Donald Sued and What He Alleged

Donald filed suit on January 24, 2017 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana. The case, Donald v. Outlaw (Case No. 2:17-CV-32), named former Gary police officer Bruce Outlaw, the estate of detective John E. Jelks Jr., who had died before the suit was filed, and the City of Gary.³

The complaint brought federal civil rights claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 along with Indiana state-law claims. Donald alleged that the officers deprived him of a fair trial by withholding exculpatory evidence, running suggestive identification procedures, and fabricating inculpatory evidence, all in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. He also brought counts for conspiracy, failure to intervene, malicious prosecution under both the Fourth Amendment and Indiana law, and intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress. The City was named on respondeat superior and indemnification theories.³

Donald was represented by attorney Jon Loevy of the Chicago civil rights firm Loevy & Loevy.⁴

The Court’s Ruling on Qualified Immunity

Early in the case, the defendants moved to dismiss and argued qualified immunity. The court rejected that defense, finding it was clearly established in 1992 that withholding exculpatory evidence, orchestrating unfair identification procedures, and fabricating evidence violated constitutional rights.³

Some state-law claims were narrowed. The malicious prosecution count under Indiana law was dismissed as to all defendants under the Indiana Tort Claims Act, and the emotional distress counts were dismissed against the individual officers but allowed to proceed against the City. The federal claims, which carried the core of the case, survived and moved toward trial before the parties settled.

The Settlement Amount and Why It Isn’t Officially Public

The settlement terms were not filed with the court. Donald told reporters his attorneys had instructed him not to discuss the amount, and Loevy declined to comment beyond confirming that the case had been resolved.⁴ The City of Gary’s law department denied a public records request for the settlement agreement.¹ The $12 million figure comes from a March 2026 report by Gary 411 News and has not been confirmed through court filings or the city.²

The Wrongful Conviction Behind the Lawsuit

On February 27, 1992, a string of armed robberies hit Gary’s Glen Park neighborhood, ending in the fatal shooting of 30-year-old Bernard Jimenez inside his home. Victims described the gunman as thin with acne-scarred skin. Donald was larger than that description and had no facial scarring. His photograph was in the police mugshot book only because of an earlier uncharged investigation tied to a car he had borrowed.⁵

Two witnesses, robbery victim Rhonda Williams and Jimenez’s fiancée Kimerly Belinsky, picked Donald from the mugshot book and a live lineup. Williams later said she and Belinsky discussed their selections during the photo array, and that when she voiced doubt at the live lineup, telling police Donald looked bigger and taller than her attacker, a detective told her she had the right man and “convinced me I had picked the right guy.”⁶ At least three other robbery victims from that day, including a retired police officer, viewed the lineup and did not identify Donald.⁵

Police also never disclosed a call Williams made shortly after her robbery, in which she reported seeing the man who robbed her standing across the street from her home. Officers responded but the suspect was gone; records later showed Donald was at work at that time.⁷

Donald was convicted of first-degree murder and two counts of armed robbery on June 12, 1992 and sentenced to 60 years. Years later, the Medill Innocence Project at Northwestern University took the case, and journalism students identified another Gary man, 18-year-old Lavelle Thompson, as a likely perpetrator; Thompson had the acne scarring victims described but had been murdered before he was identified as a suspect.⁵ Williams formally recanted her identification in a 2013 deposition.⁷

On January 25, 2016, a Lake County court overturned Donald’s convictions, finding that the state had failed to share exculpatory evidence with the defense.⁸ The Lake County District Attorney declined to retry the case, telling the court there was “no credible evidence” that Donald committed the crimes, and moved to dismiss. Donald walked out of the Lake County Jail on January 28, 2016, after 23 years, 10 months, and 25 days.⁹

Indiana Compensation Law and the Advisory Coalition

When Donald left prison in 2016, Indiana had no state program to compensate people released after wrongful convictions.¹⁰ He worked with Dr. Nicky Jackson, an associate criminal justice professor at Purdue University Northwest, and state Representative Greg Steuerwald, who in 2019 authored legislation providing Indiana exonerees up to $50,000 per year of wrongful incarceration.¹¹

In 2020, Dr. Jackson founded the Willie T. Donald Exoneration Advisory Coalition, which connects wrongfully convicted people with jobs, transportation, dental care, and other practical support after release; Donald serves on its board. Whether Donald received compensation under the 2019 Indiana statute is not publicly documented; as of 2021, he was still paying out of pocket to have his wrongful convictions expunged.¹⁰

1
Chicago Tribune. Wrongfully Convicted Gary Man’s Federal Court Case Dismissed
2
Gary 411 News. Willie T. Donald Settlement
3
Casemine. Donald v. Outlaw, Civil Action No. 2:17-CV-32 JVB
4
NWI Times. Willie T. Donald Settlement
5
True Crime News. Wrongful Conviction: The Exoneration of Willie T. Donald
6
People. Willie T. Donald Wrongful Conviction
7
NWI Times. Willie T. Donald Exoneration
8
Chicago Reader. Willie Donald’s Murder Conviction Is Overturned
9
Forejustice. Willie T. Donald
10
People. Wrongfully Convicted Indiana Man and Professor Help Exonerees
11
Innocence Project. Exoneree Compensation in Indiana