According to PEOPLE, a Michigan man convicted of a 2011 murder has sued Hertz for not handing over a receipt that would have helped clear his innocence.
Herbert Alford was found guilty of second-degree murder in 2016 for the death of Michael Adams. However, Alford did not commit the crime, and his long-awaited Hertz receipt proved it, Jamie White, attorney for Alford, told the outlet.
The receipt confirmed that Alford was renting a car at an airport near Lansing, Michigan, around the time the murder took place.
Hertz did not hand over the evidence until 2018, after several subpoenas were served to the company over three years. The receipt led to Alford’s exoneration in Ingham County in 2020.
Carol Siemon, Ingham County’s prosecuting attorney, said that the evidence was a key factor but was not available at the original trial.
“We do not believe that we can prove Mr. Alford’s legal culpability by the ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ standard,” she wrote in a statement to the newspaper. “Therefore, the Ingham County Prosecutor’s Office is dismissing the case against Herbert Alford.”
If the receipt was obtained sooner, Alford might have never been convicted.
“I think we can presume that if [prosecutors] don’t think they can prosecute the case with alibi proof now, then how could they have done it then?” he said.
“I think Hertz really dropped the ball here.”
The company has since said it is “deeply saddened to learn of Mr. Alford’s experience.”
“While we were unable to find the historic rental record from 2011 when it was requested in 2015, we continued our good faith efforts to locate it,”
Hertz said, “With advances in data search in the years following, we were able to locate the rental record in 2018 and promptly provided it.”
Alford spent nearly five years behind bars before his charges were finally dropped. He seeks financial compensation.
However, the case is expected to be delayed due to Hertz’s ongoing bankruptcy reorganization, the Associated Press reported.
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