ST. LOUIS • A jury in federal court here Friday awarded $2.5 million to a man who spent five years in prison in a case that involved two former St. Louis police officers, one of whom was convicted of stealing money and planting drugs.

“Finally, after 13 years of fighting, I’ve got exoneration — in my eyes,” Michael Holmes said after the verdict. He called it “a measure of exoneration” because although his conviction was reversed, he is still fighting to be declared innocent.

Holmes claimed in his lawsuit and on the witness stand that former officers Shell Sharp and Bobby Lee Garrett, lied when they said that they found him with drugs in a 2003 raid.

Holmes was later charged, convicted at trial and sentenced to 20 years for crack possession and five more years for possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, despite proclaiming his innocence.

His 2007 appeal was rejected.

But both officers’ reputations were called into question in 2008 and 2009. Defense lawyers said Sharp lied on search warrants, and prosecutors later dismissed some of his cases. Federal prosecutors accused Garrett of stealing money, dealing drugs and planting evidence on innocent people.