It should have been a day of sweet vindication for Leonard McSherry.
After McSherry served 13 years in prison for a crime he insisted he didn't commit, Gov. Gray Davis cut him a check for almost half a million dollars as compensation for being wrongly imprisoned. The state agreed to pay the sum after a DNA test performed last year showed he was innocent of raping a 6-year-old girl in 1988.
But as the governor announced the settlement Tuesday, McSherry was sitting in a downtown Los Angeles jail cell.
He was arrested April 10 in connection with loitering around a Beverly Hills elementary school and ordered held on $250,000 bail. He has pleaded not guilty to five counts of misdemeanor loitering. His attorney, Mark Overland, declined to comment.
The arrest caught the governor's office off-guard Wednesday.
"I don't know what to say about that," Davis spokesman Byron Tucker said when told by a reporter about McSherry's status. "This appears to be an unfortunate and rather ironic twist of fate for Mr. McSherry; however, his current situation is in no way reflected in the claim he is entitled to."
McSherry's arrest comes as he is suing the city of Long Beach in federal court for false arrest. Even though McSherry, 53, was cleared of one molestation, Long Beach officials point out that he has a long criminal record, including three other molestations, a kidnapping and an indecent-exposure conviction dating to 1969.
"I never thought this guy should have been released in the first place," said William Reidder, a Long Beach city attorney. "If someone is stupid enough to pay this man, there's nothing I can do about it. I hope his prior victims file a lien against it."
Davis' office released a statement Tuesday saying the governor had signed a $2.4-million appropriations bill that compensated almost 600 people with various claims against the state -- claims that included unfair imprisonment and uncollected tax refunds. The statement named only two of the recipients: McSherry and Frederick Daye, who was exonerated of kidnapping and rape charges by DNA testing.
McSherry "was incarcerated from October 1988 to December 2001 for a crime he did not commit, which was supported by DNA evidence discovered by the California Department of Justice," Tucker said.
McSherry will receive $481,200, or $100 for each day he was in custody, all tax-free. The money will be paid through the victim's compensation and government claims board, officials said.
