LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - A former Kentucky police officer involved in cases that wrongfully imprisoned several people pleaded guilty Tuesday to giving false testimony against a man who spent nearly a decade in prison for a crime he did not commit.
Former Louisville police Detective Mark Handy entered his plea to first-degree perjury in Jefferson County, news outlets reported.
Handy was accused of giving false testimony against defendant Edwin Chandler in 1995.
Chandler spent nearly nine years in prison for the 1993 killing of Brenda Whitfield before new fingerprint technology helped clear him in 2009. The city paid him an $8.5 million settlement after his lawyers proved Handy had coerced his confession, news outlets have reported.
One of Chandler’s lawyers told The Courier Journal on Tuesday that his client was “relieved” to see Handy “face some small measure of accountability for his crimes against innocent people.”
Special prosecutor Shane Young recommended Handy serve a five-year sentence that would be suspended for five years, news outlets reported. Handy was set to be formally sentenced July 28.
The former detective left the Louisville Police Department for the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office and retired from law enforcement in 2018. The Courier Journal said it couldn’t reach him for comment Tuesday.
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