INGLEWOOD, Calif. — The city of Inglewood has agreed to pay $25 million to settle a wrongful conviction lawsuit brought by Maurice Hastings, who spent nearly four decades in prison before being exonerated. According to the civil rights law firm Neufeld Scheck Brustin Hoffmann & Freudenberger (NSBHF), the settlement is believed to be the largest of its kind in California history.
Nick Brustin, a partner at NSBHF, called the settlement “a powerful vindication for Mr. Hastings, who has shown remarkable fortitude first in fighting to prove his innocence.” Brustin also warned that police departments “should take notice that there is a steep price to pay for allowing such egregious misconduct on their watch.”
Hastings was arrested at the age of 31 for the 1983 carjacking, rape, and murder of Roberta Wydermyer, as well as the attempted murders of her husband and friend, George Pinson. He was exonerated in 2022 at the age of 69 after serving 38 years in prison.
The firm’s 2023 federal civil rights lawsuit revealed that Inglewood detective Grant Price falsified evidence against Hastings and hid his alibi, framing him for crimes he did not commit. DNA testing in 2022, with the help of the Los Angeles Innocence Project, proved Hastings was not the perpetrator. In 2023, a California court declared him factually innocent. The DNA pointed instead to Kenneth Packnett, a convicted sex offender who died in prison in 2020.
“What happened in this case represents policing at its absolute worst,” NSBHF counsel Katie McCarthy said. “Price not only caused Mr. Hastings’s wrongful conviction but also allowed the true perpetrator to remain free to terrorize other victims.”
According to the firm, litigation showed Price targeted Hastings despite the lack of evidence, coercing eyewitnesses, suppressing alibi testimony, and falsifying statements. In litigation, Price admitted he buried evidence that would have supported Hastings’s innocence.
“No amount of money could ever restore the 38 years of my life that were stolen from me,” Hastings said. “But this settlement is a welcome end to a very long road, and I look forward to moving on with my life. I thank God that I’ve made it to the other side of this decades-long ordeal, and I thank my family and legal team for their steadfast support over the years.”
Despite evidence pointing to Packnett, the Inglewood Police Department failed to investigate him. He was found in custody shortly after the murder for unrelated car theft, in possession of jewelry and a coin purse matching items Wydermyer had when she was killed, as well as the gun used in the crime. DNA evidence and corroborating testimony from Packnett’s ex-girlfriend later confirmed him as the sole perpetrator of the 1983 crimes.
Hastings is represented by NSBHF partners Brustin, Anna Benvenutti Hoffmann, and Emma Freudenberger, counsel McCarthy, attorneys Christina Matthias and Annie Sloan, paralegal Ariel Manning, and local counsel from Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy LLP.
Today, Hastings lives quietly in Southern California, where he volunteers distributing meals to unhoused people and is active in his local church, according to NSBHF.
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