The city of Concord will have to pay out a record settlement for its part in wrongfully convicting Ronnie Long and issue a formal apology to him.

Long was 21 years old in 1976 when he was sentenced to life in prison for a rape he didn’t commit. He spent 44 years behind bars until the courts finally overturned his conviction in 2020, citing the “troubling and striking pattern of deliberate police suppression of material evidence.”

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper formally pardoned Long in December 2020, making way for him to receive a $750,000 payment from the state. But Long and his team filed a civil suit against the city of Concord, the detectives on the case and the State Bureau of Investigation.

As part of the settlement in that case, the city of Concord agreed to pay him $22 million and the State Bureau of Investigation paid him $3 million. That is the largest settlement of its kind in the state’s history, and one of the largest ever in U.S. history. The city of Concord also issued a formal apology which is another rare happening. #RonnieLong #Crime

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