3 ex-detectives in Philadelphia were charged with lying on the witness stand during an innocent man's retrial

• 3 ex-detectives in Philadelphia have been charged with perjury and false swearing in official matters.
• The officers lied while testifying at a 2016 retrial for a man wrongfully convicted of rape and murder, prosecutors alleged.
• The officers' lawyer told Insider they are "good men" who are innocent of all charges.

A grand jury in Philadelphia has indicted three former homicide detectives on charges of lying on the witness stand while a wrongfully convicted man was retried, according to the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office.

The charges were unsealed Friday and the officers turned themselves in later that afternoon, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The three retired officers, Martin Devlin, Frank Jastrzembski, and Manuel Santiago, were each charged with multiple counts of perjury and false swearing in official matters, prosecutors said in a statement.

The retrial was for a wrongfully convicted man named Anthony Wright, who was accused in the 1991 rape and murder of 77-year-old Louise Talley. Wright's conviction was overturned in 2014 after new DNA evidence surfaced, but prosecutors retried him in 2016. A jury exonerated Wright after deliberating for less than one hour.

An attorney representing Devlin, Jastrzembski, and Santiago told Insider in a statement that his clients are innocent of all charges.

"These three good men spent their entire careers seeking justice for crime victims," their lawyer, Brian McMonagle, said. "In this case they sought justice for an 80 year old woman who was brutally raped and murdered."

Wright, his lawyers at the Innocence Project, and Philadelphia prosecutors have all alleged that Devlin and Santiago coerced Wright to sign a false confession during their 1991 investigation, while Jastrzembski gave false testimony claiming that bloody clothing was found during a search of Wright's bedroom, when really it was found in Talley's home.

Prosecutors also alleged that Devlin and Santiago lied and used violent threats to force Wright to sign the false confession. The ex-officers are accused of lying that Wright could go home if he signed the confession, preventing him from reading its contents, and threatening to "pull his eyes out and skull-f--- him."

"Wright, then 20 years old, repeatedly told detectives he had no involvement or knowledge of the crime, and spent hours repeatedly crying for his mother, whom he could hear outside the interrogation room screaming for him," prosecutors said in their Friday statement.

Prosecutors said the grand jury was instructed to review the former officers' conduct during Wright's 2016 retrial and 2017 lawsuit, since the statute of limitations has expired for their conduct during the 1991 investigation.

They alleged that Devlin, Jastrzembski, and Santiago lied under oath "about both the evidence used to convict Wright and their knowledge of the DNA evidence that ultimately exonerated Wright." Prosecutors added that both Devlin and Santiago lied at the retrial and in depositions, saying Wright had willingly confessed to rape and murder.