PANACHE CELEBRITY SPY NETWORK:

by: Gina Tron

Due to the success of Netflix's "When They See Us," the following two cases are up for film consideration:

Jamal Trulove, 33, (above) has definitely had an eventful life.

In 2007, he was an aspiring rapper who landed a role on the VH1 reality show “I Love New York 2” under the moniker “Milliown.” He briefly vied for the affection of Tiffany “New York” Pollard. That very same year, he also became a murder suspect.

On July 23, 2007 at around 11 p.m., Seu Kuka, 28, was shot to death on the street in front of a San Francisco, California public housing project. He had been shot nine times; seven of those shots were fired from a distance, according to the National Registry of Exonerations.

Even though there were about thirty people present on the street when the gunfire erupted, only one witness, who saw the shooting from a second-floor window, came forward. Priscilla Lualemaga told police she saw Kuka chase a man around a car and then knock another man over. When the man got up, he started shooting at Kuka. She later identified Trulove as the possible shooter. In 2008, he was charged with Kuka’s death. Lualemaga testified against him in 2010 —her first identification was tentative, but was "affirmed after seeing Trulove three months later as a guest on the reality TV show 'I Love New York 2'." Trulove was sentenced to prison from 50 years to life for murder.

And then the truth came out. Trulove’s attorney filed a state petition after finding several witnesses who claimed they saw the gunman, and that he wasn’t Trulove. In 2014, the state appeals court decided to hear the case. They decided that the prosecution had committed misconduct for making up that their star witness risked her life by testifying.

During a new trial, a ballistics expert testified that the witness would not have been able to get a good view of who killed Kuka. On March 11, 2015, Trulove was acquitted. In all, Trulove spent six years in prison — 4 of which he spent without family visitation because he was incarcerated in a remote location. A year later, he fired a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city and the county.

On April 6, a federal jury awarded him $13.1 million after determining that police framed him for murder. The jury decided that Michael Johnson and Maureen D'Amico, investigators on Kuka’s murder case, fabricated evidence against Trulove, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. In a February ruling that allowed the case to go to trial, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers cited evidence that the investigators asked Lualemaga “Are you sure it wasn’t Jamal Trulove?” When she said she didn't know, instead of showing her photographs of different people, D’Amico showed her a photo array including Trulove and other people she had already dismissed as being the shooter. There was also evidence of another potential suspect who was never investigated, the Judge said.

Both Johnson and D’Amico are now retired.

On March 26, 2004, Canadian Football League linebacker Orlando Bowen (above) was out celebrating his new contract with the Toronto Argonauts. Two plainclothes officers approached him, and he apparently ran away from them. There was an altercation, and Bowen was arrested for drug possession and assaulting a police officer.

Bowen, who spoke to schoolchildren about staying away from drugs, claimed that the cops had planted the drugs on him. In his version of the story, he was talking on his cell phone outside a club in Mississauga when two men approached him looking for drugs. Bowen turned them down, the men got more aggressive, and one grabbed his arm. He broke free and ran. One of the men shouted, “Stop, or I’ll shoot.” He then realized they were police officers, so he stopped. He was beaten, getting a concussion and a busted lip, and that’s when they planted the cocaine on him.

He went to trial in 2005, and both officers, Sheldon Cook and Grant Gervais, testified in court that Bowen threw away the cocaine as he ran. However, Bowen was acquitted when one of the arresting officers, Sheldon Cook, was arrested for trafficking cocaine.

The damage had already been done. Bowen, who had been a pillar of the community, had his reputation trashed. He also had to retire from football early because of a concussion he’d received during the arrest. Bowen sued the police department for $14 million and received an out-of-court settlement. He is now a motivational speaker and has even forgiven the two officers who arrested him. Cook was suspended without pay from the force and then was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison. He’s appealing the conviction.