LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — In the immediate aftermath of a federal jury’s $34 million verdict in her favor, Kirstin Lobato’s emotions appeared to run the gamut.
Among them, gratitude, for siding with her in the civil rights lawsuit against Metro police and two retired detectives for framing her — fabricating evidence and intentionally inflicting emotional distress — for the violent 2001 murder of a homeless man, Duran Bailey.
“I just want to thank everybody who’s believed in me all this time and who’s fought for me and gotten me to this point,” Lobato told the 8 News Now Investigators outside of the Federal Courthouse in downtown Las Vegas.
But she also expressed anger at the notion that the Clark County sheriff and district attorney challenge whether she is technically innocent of Bailey’s murder, which the Innocence Project was able to prove she was incapable of committing because she was at her family’s home in Panaca.
“There were points where I was shaking with rage because it’s so incredibly unfair that the truth is clear as day and they still just dig in their feet,” Lobato said. “Zero accountability.”
When asked if she thinks the police intentionally framed her, Lobato chose her words carefully, saying, “It seems likely.”
But one of her attorney’s answers was unequivocal.
“Of course they intentionally framed her, and that’s what the jury saw,” Elizabeth Wang, the attorney, said.
A state court issued a certificate of innocence to Lobato in October, and in November Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill and district attorney Steve Wolfson wrote a letter to the state attorney general, Aaron Ford, asking them to investigate one of Lobato’s other attorneys, David Owens from the Chicago law firm Loevy and Loevy, and the representations he made with regard to whether he’d use that certificate as leverage in the federal trial.
The letter, first obtained by the 8 News Now Investigators, also questioned Lobato’s actual innocence.
“Notably, the DA’s Conviction Review Unit (CRU) did not declare her innocent, emphasizing that the CRU is not meant to act as a ‘thirteenth juror,’ ” the letter said. “To qualify for re-investigation, Lobato must present new, verifiable evidence of actual innocence.”
Citing the ongoing litigation, Owens declined to comment during the nine-day trial, including two days of deliberations. He strongly rejected these assertions afterward.
“When you accuse me of lying and ask for an investigation into the things that I’ve done to represent my client, we have a problem,” Owens said, seemingly speaking directly to McMahill and Wolfson. “Mr. elected D.A., Mr. Sheriff, if you want to talk to me about the things that I did for my client, you absolutely, you’re going to hear from me, for sure.”
Metro did not respond to a request Friday afternoon for a comment with regard to the verdict, which also awarded Lobato $10,000 from each detective for punitive damages. The $34 million was compensatory damages for the 16-or-so years Lobato spent in prison. She was released in 2018.
The detectives, Thomas Thowsen and James LaRochelle, did not answer direct questions from the 8 News Now Investigators outside of the courthouse. Their attorney, Craig Anderson, said the defendants would have no comment.
Lobato, with a possible windfall in her future as a result of the verdict, was circumspect.
“I have no idea what the rest of my life is going to look like,” she said. “I know what the past has looked like and it was pretty bad.”
The federal judge presiding over Lobato’s trial, Richard F. Boulware II, indicated that Metro and the detectives would be jointly and severally liable for the $34 million awarded to Lobato.
