Fighting to make ends meet
Fighting to make ends meet
Andrew Johnson fought to clear his name and leave prison, but now he's fighting to pay his bills.
CHEYENNE -- A local man convicted of a crime he didn't commit fought for 23 years to get out of prison.
Now, he says he's fighting to make ends meet.
"When I left out of society, I was married, I was raising a child, I had a picket fence, a car, everything," Andrew J. Johnson said Monday. "I worked for that. Now the state don't want to give any of that back to me."
Johnson was sentenced to life in prison in 1989 for sexual assault and aggravated burglary. Charges were dismissed last year after a DNA test of seminal fluid found in the victim’s sexual assault kit didn’t match him.
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People donated money, and someone donated a car for Johnson to use.
“(The account) got quite a few donations directly after his exoneration, but since then, it’s been pretty dormant,” attorney Elizabeth Fasse said.
Then, in late August, the car was vandalized. Someone poked holes in the tires and wrote the word “rapist” on it.
Johnson also said someone threw eggs at his ex-wife’s house. They also found a brick near her door that had a racial slur aimed at their interracial relationship.
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He also applied for Social Security and disability benefits, since he has glaucoma, arthritis and balance problems. He was denied both.
http://www.wyomingnews.com/articles/2014/01/01/news/01top_01-01-14.txt
