US jury awards $14m to Drumgold

The jury in US District Court in Boston approved the compensatory damages a week after it found former Boston police detective Timothy Callahan liable for violating Drumgold’s civil rights. The 11-member panel determined that Callahan’s failure to tell prosecutors that he had housed, fed, and paid a key prosecution witness contributed to Drumgold’s wrongful conviction.

Drumgold, now 44, was convicted of fatally shooting 12-year-old Darlene Tiffany Moore in 1988 as she sat on a mailbox among a group of people. The slaying, which authorities investigated as a gang shooting gone awry, shocked a city already on edge about drug-fueled street violence and spurred a massive investigation to hunt down those responsible. A Globe investigative story in 2003 prompted state prosecutors to reexamine Drumgold’s conviction and ultimately led to his release that year.

Accompanied by his wife, mother, and lawyers, Drumgold seemed surprisingly subdued yesterday, despite his victory in a civil rights suit that he filed five years ago and continued to pursue despite a 2008 mistrial.

“I’m excited,’’ Drumgold, of Dorchester, said in the courthouse lobby. “It’s been a long battle, but we’ve still got a long way to go.’’

District Court Judge Nancy Gertner has scheduled another civil trial for December, when a new jury will determine what portion of the award should be paid by the city and what portion by Callahan. However, legal specialists said that if the award stands, the city would almost certainly foot the entire bill, because it has paid all of Callahan’s legal fees and mounted a vigorous defense.

As of the end of August, the city had paid private lawyers more than $1.8 million to defend police in Drumgold’s lawsuit. The total does not include work at the most recent trial, which began Sept. 8.

William F. Sinnott, the city’s corporation counsel, said in a statement that the award was “not a surprise, given some of the difficult evidentiary and procedural issues arising in this case,’’ an apparent reference to rulings by Gertner that the city opposed.

Sinnott said the city was considering an appeal to the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. “Our foremost concern is that justice is served to the memory of an innocent young girl whose life was cut short by senseless violence,’’ Sinnott said.

In April 2008, a different jury found that Callahan had violated Drumgold’s civil rights by concealing the fact that he had given $20 to Ricky Evans, a key prosecution witness, before Drumgold’s 1989 murder trial. But those jurors could not agree on whether the withheld evidence resulted in Drumgold’s wrongful conviction and whether Drumgold should have been awarded damages. Ultimately, Gertner declared a mistrial

Drumgold’s lead attorney, Rosemary Scapicchio, said the award yesterday vindicated her client, who has never been publicly exonerated by Boston police or Suffolk prosecutors.

“I’m thrilled that the Boston Police Department is being held accountable for its actions,’’ she said. “He spent 15 years in jail as a result of Detective Callahan’s actions.’’

Asked whether she had any doubts about Drumgold’s innocence, Scapicchio, smiling broadly, said: “The jury came back loud and clear today. Absolutely none.’’

Drumgold’s lawyers said the $14 million is in line with other awards in federal courts for individuals imprisoned as a result of wrongful convictions. Typically, they said, juries award about $1 million in damages for each year a plaintiff has spent in prison.

Last Wednesday the jury concluded that Callahan violated Drumgold’s rights by hiding the fact that the detective had supplied Evans, a homeless teenager at the time, with free housing at a Howard Johnson’s motel, fed him repeatedly, and paid him $20.

Evans was a pivotal witness at Drumgold’s murder trial, where the prosecution, lacking physical evidence, relied on a half-dozen witnesses whose testimony portrayed the Dorchester man as the killer. Evans testified that he saw Drumgold and another man, Terrance Taylor, near the Roxbury street corner where Moore was killed shortly before and after the shooting, and that both men were armed and acting strange. Both men were tried on murder charges, but only Drumgold was convicted.

Evans recanted his testimony at a Suffolk Superior Court hearing in 2003.

At both of Drumgold’s federal civil rights trials, Evans, who is now 40, testified that he had no knowledge of Drumgold’s involvement in Moore’s death but picked up details about the case as Callahan spoke with another officer during meals at the Howard Johnson’s.

Moore was slain Aug. 19, 1988, in a shooting that came to symbolize an epidemic of street violence in Boston. Two gunmen wearing Halloween masks and black clothes fired at a crowd gathered on the corner, killing Moore as she talked with friends.

The killing sent shock waves through the city. Some residents called for the deployment of the National Guard. But many who knew Drumgold were stunned by his arrest and conviction.

Leslie Walker, executive director of Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services, said she defended Drumgold in a minor drug case in the mid-1980s when she was an assistant public defender and he was a teenager.

“He was a bit lost,’’ Walker said yesterday, “but he was not somebody who was going to wield a weapon and shoot a little girl off a mailbox.’’

Walker visited Drumgold at a holding cell at the courthouse immediately after his conviction.

“We were all so shocked,’’ she said. “Even the court officers were sure he was going to be found not guilty.’’

In May 2003, a Globe investigative report challenged many aspects of the conviction, including Drumgold’s supposed gang affiliation. Two witnesses recanted statements and testimony used to convict Drumgold, saying authorities coerced them into providing incriminating evidence.

In response to the story, Suffolk prosecutors reexamined the case and concluded that Drumgold got an unfair trial. Superior Court Judge Barbara J. Rouse threw out the conviction in November 2003. Prosecutors opted not to retry Drumgold.

Scapicchio said that after Drumgold filed a lawsuit against the city, she offered to settle the case out of court for $15 million, but that city officials never responded.

If the city, which is self-insured, ends up having to pay the $14 million, plus the legal fees it has accrued, it will end up paying more than that.

“We just got a $14 million verdict,’’ Scapicchio said, “and they never offered us a dime, not a single dime.’’

Robert A. George, a Boston defense lawyer who represented Taylor at the 1989 murder trial, said the city should not appeal and should pursue a swift settlement with Drumgold.

“The city should pay whatever it takes to end the nightmare now,’’ George said.

Mari Adams, a Roxbury antiviolence activist and a friend of the families of Drumgold and Moore, said that she was happy for Drumgold, but that no award could truly compensate him.

And no one, she said, has been held accountable for Moore’s slaying.

“It’s a terrible situation,’’ Adams said. “Justice hasn’t truly been served.’’

Saltzman can be reached at jsaltzman@globe.com.