Ohio to give $1.1M to man who spent nearly 18 years in prison for rape he didn’t commit

Ohio giving $1.1M to man wrongly convicted of rape

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio has agreed to give $1.1 million to a man who spent nearly 18 years in prison for a rape he didn’t commit.

Fifty-four-year-old Robert McClendon was released in August 2008 after he was cleared by DNA testing. McClendon says he’s grateful for the settlement, but it doesn’t make up for the time spent in prison.

McClendon has been living in an apartment in Columbus with his son. He says he plans to buy a house, a car and invest the rest of the money.

The settlement still needs to be approved by the Ohio Court of Claims.

McClendon was convicted in 1991 of abducting and raping a female relative. A private lab agreed to conduct DNA tests after he and other inmates were profiled by The Columbus Dispatch in a series that exposed flaws in the state’s DNA testing system.

Information from: The Columbus Dispatch, www.dispatch.com