William Dillon didn’t believe the day would come when he would be compensated for sitting in a Florida prison nearly three decades for a crime he didn’t commit. But the persistence of one of Florida’s most noted attorneys and the outgoing Senate president paid off Thursday when lawmakers approved a $1.35 million payout and sent it to Gov. Rick Scott.
Now middle-aged, Dillon was cleared by DNA testing in the beating death of James Dvorak on a Brevard County beach in 1981. A jailhouse informant has since recanted his testimony against Dillon, and authorities reopened the murder investigation. Dillon was freed in 2008.
