A Leicester man who was arrested and charged with murder in connection with a stabbing last year that killed 19-year-old Jehlon Rose in Worcester — and was later cleared of those charges — has filed a civil lawsuit against the city of Worcester and the Worcester Police Department.
Dana Gaul, 43, was arrested and charged with murder on June 24, 2021, roughly seven months after Rose was stabbed outside 96 Water St. on Nov. 24, 2020. Rose died in the hospital three days after the stabbing.
The Worcester Police Department Detective Bureau investigated the stabbing for roughly seven months and said it identified Gaul using surveillance footage, cell phone video and images as well as eyewitnesses.
In the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court Monday, lawyers representing Gaul, however, claim Worcester police officers used “fabricated evidence,” which included coercing third parties who were not at the scene of the murder into agreeing that grainy photos taken from surveillance video at the scene looked like Gaul.
The lawsuit names five Worcester police officers including Joseph A. Albano, Elisa Baez, Dan Heavey, Sean Lovely and Tim Foley.
“There was never any legitimate evidence connecting him to the murder,” attorney Mark Loevy-Reyes writes in the lawsuit.
After Gaul’s arraignment in 2021, he was held without bail until new evidence came to light that pointed to another individual being responsible for the killing of Rose.
Court records show that a Worcester man, Jorge Luis...
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