Exonerated Downey man files suit after spending nearly 30 years in prison

Gerardo Cabanillas spent more than 28 years in prison for crimes he did not commit. In 1996, Cabanillas was wrongfully convicted of robbery, kidnapping, and sexual assault. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

DOWNEY — A Downey man who spent nearly three decades in prison for kidnapping, sexual assault and robbery convictions before DNA testing revealed he was innocent of the crimes filed suit Thursday against the cities of South Gate and Huntington Park for wrongful conviction and imprisonment.

In January 1995, a man and woman were robbed at gunpoint by two men who also sexually assaulted the woman. Days later, Gerardo Cabanillas, then an 18-year-old newlywed, was arrested because he generally matched the description of one of the suspects, according to the civil rights lawsuit filed in Los Angeles federal court.

Despite no physical evidence connecting Cabanillas to the crime, he was charged with 14 felony counts. Although insisting he was innocent throughout the ensuing trial, Cabanillas was ultimately convicted and handed a sentence of 87 years in state prison.

Messages left with the city attorneys of South Gate and Huntington Park were not immediately answered.

In 2019, lawyers from the California Innocence Project, a nonprofit that works to free wrongfully convicted people from prison, filed a motion to have DNA evidence related to the 1995 sexual assault victim tested. None of the DNA matched Cabanillas, according to the suit.

Cabanillas was conditionally released from a prison in May 2023 and permanently set free four months later, when a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge vacated his conviction and found him factually innocent. Shortly afterwards, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón personally apologized to Cabanillas at a news conference.

The lawsuit alleges that Cabanillas was coached by police detectives to give a false confession that was full of misstatements and inaccuracies.

Cabanillas is now 48 years old and lives in Downey.

"To bolster their case, South Gate detectives falsified the paperwork on their investigation to hide their misconduct and implicate Mr. Cabanillas," according to his attorneys.

"Gerardo Cabanillas had nearly 30 years stolen from him, at an age when his life was just beginning," Steve Art, among Cabanillas' attorneys, said in a statement.

"Nothing can make Gerardo whole for the loss he has suffered or for the horror of wrongful imprisonment that he endured for so long. But Gerardo is entitled to justice, and he will hold the officers of South Gate and Huntington Park who framed him accountable for their illegal and unethical misconduct."