Freed murder suspect says cops hid DNA evidence that exonerated him

Dan Horn | Cincinnati Enquirer

A man who spent months in jail on murder charges accused Cincinnati Police on Friday of hiding DNA evidence that exonerated him.

Joshua Maxton had faced eight charges, including murder and felonious assault, for a June 2015 shooting in Avondale that killed Robin Pearl as she sat in a car.

Maxton, 28, claimed in a lawsuit in U.S. District Court that police knew or should have known they had the wrong man, but they allowed his case to go to trial anyway. Maxton was acquitted of the charges in 2016.

"The Cincinnati Police department and two of its officers buried evidence of his innocence and caused him to be held for months," the lawsuit states. "Mr. Maxton could be spending life in prison for a murder he did not commit."

The suit names the city of Cincinnati and two police officers, Bill Hilbert and Jeff Gramke, as defendants in the case. Hilbert was a detective investigating the shooting and Gramke was then the sergeant in charge of the homicide unit.

City and police officials declined comment.

Maxton was indicted on murder charges a few weeks after Pearl's death on Burton Avenue in Avondale.

But according to the lawsuit, the case against him began to unravel soon after Maxton's arrest. The suit says several eyewitnesses came forward to identify another man as the shooter and, later, DNA evidence connected that other man to a soda can believed to have been handled by the gunman.

Police failed to share those findings, however, and allowed the case against Maxton to proceed, the lawsuit states.

"DNA analysis had definitively excluded Mr. Maxton," the lawsuit states. "It was profoundly exculpatory."

Though Maxton has been acquitted and released, no one else has been charged in Pearl's murder.