Man wrongfully convicted of Paramount murder gets $14 million settlement

California Innocence Project attorney Audrey McGinn, left, and Alexander Torres, right, after he was released from custody on Oct. 19, 2021. Photo courtesy the California Innocence Project.

Without discussion the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Tuesday approved a $14 million settlement of a lawsuit filed by a man who spent more than two decades behind bars following his wrongful conviction for a gang member's killing in Paramount.

Alexander Torres -- who was found guilty in 2001 of second-degree murder -- was released from prison in 2021 after his conviction was vacated. The District Attorney's Office's Conviction Integrity Unit later joined with the California Innocence Project in asking a judge to find Torres factually innocent of the killing -- a finding made by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William Ryan in April 2022.

Torres was serving a 40-years-to-life state prison sentence for the slaying of Martin "Casper" Guitron, who was shot eight times while walking with a friend in the area near 15121 El Camino Ave. on New Year's Eve in 2000.

Following his release, Torres filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, accusing deputies of conspiring to frame him by suppressing evidence and fabricating eyewitness accounts.

Torres' attorneys alleged that when sheriff's homicide detectives were unable to identify a clear suspect for the shooting and eyewitnesses offered little help, "they decided to invent a suspect themselves and make the evidence implicate that suspect," according to the suit.

The detectives focused on Torres first because, in their view, Torres had a history of conflict with the victim and was affiliated with a rival gang, lawyers for Torres alleged.

The detectives allegedly "decided that Torres was a good enough suspect and decided to manufacture evidence to convict him of Guitron's murder," the lawsuit states. The investigators were assisted by fellow deputies "in their efforts to prosecute Torres for the Guitron homicide, despite the fact that they had no evidence of his guilt," the plaintiff's attorneys allege.

"In agreeing to falsely initiate Torres' prosecution, the Defendant Officers determined that they would not conduct a legitimate, honest investigation of the shooting but would, instead, focus their efforts on obtaining Torres' wrongful conviction," according to the suit.

In the 2022 motion seeking a factual innocence finding for Torres, prosecutors agreed that "there is not a single reliable or credible piece of evidence that Torres committed the crime for which he was convicted and served over 20 years in prison. The parties further agree Torres has shown he is actually innocent of this crime by a preponderance of the evidence."

The motion indicated that detectives were convinced that two other people were the true perpetrators of the crime.

In a statement posted on its website about the case, the California Innocence Project noted that Torres -- who was 20 at the time -- lived in the territory of the gang to which Guitron belonged, the two had a "prolonged, well-known adversarial history," and that gang members had "subjected Torres and his family to an ongoing intimidation campaign to drive them out of the neighborhood."

The California Innocence Project's statement indicates that the alleged gunman "very closely resembles Torres in age, height, weight and overall physical appearance."