Kansas Man Wrongfully Convicted Will Receive $7.5M Settlement

A Kansas man is a free man after spending 16 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.

In 2000, Floyd Bledsoe was convicted on charges of rape and murder of 14-year-old Camille Arfmann in Oskaloosa.

But thanks to DNA testing, evidence proved he could not have been the killer.

Bledsoe, 46, was released in 2015 and will receive $7.5 million from the county where he was arrested and convicted of the crime. Jefferson County commissioners approved the settlement last week, ABC News reported.

He will receive $1.5 million initially, with the rest to be paid over the next ten years, The Kansas City Star reported.

Bledsoe was 23 when he was convicted of the crime. He was arrested despite his brother, Tom, confessing to the crime the year before and turning himself in and leading authorities to Arfmann’s body.

According to a lawsuit Floyd Bledsoe filed in 2016, Jefferson County authorities persuaded his brother to recant his admission and “framed” him by hiding evidence of his innocence.

In 2015, DNA testing revealed Tom Bledsoe was the likely source of sperm found in the victim. He killed himself that same year after writing a note again confessing to killing the teen.

The charges against Floyd Bledsoe were dismissed, and he was released from prison that year.

Russell Ainsworth, an attorney on behalf of Bledsoe, said Jefferson County faced up to $40 million in liability if the case went to trial.

Jefferson County Commissioner Richard Malm said the county’s annual budget is about $20 million. The commission would have had to propose a bond if Bledsoe had not agreed to the settlement terms.

In 2019, the state agreed to pay Bledsoe $1.03 million under a mistaken conviction law.