Tony Hopps spent 31 years in prison for a robbery he did not commit. Now, he will get $7.5 million from the city of Tampa.
On Thursday, Tampa City Council members unanimously passed a resolution to settle a federal civil rights lawsuit brought last year by Hopps, who was wrongfully convicted of a 1990 robbery and sentenced to life in prison. Hopps, now 60, was exonerated in 2021 after an investigation found that evidence used in his case was faulty.
The resolution calls for the $7.5 million to be paid to Hopps and the Chicago-based civil rights law firm Leovy & Leovy in installments over three years. The money will come from the city’s insurance fund.
Attorneys for Hopps filed the federal lawsuit in 2024 against the city and former Tampa Police Department detectives Gene Strickland, J.D. O’Nolan and George McNamara.
The lawsuit alleged that “instead of conducting a legitimate investigation into this crime, the (detectives) short-circuited the investigation and framed an innocent man” for the 1990 armed robbery of a couple at the Tahitian Inn in Tampa.
Hopps’ conviction hinged on an array of photos that detectives presented to the victims, who identified Hopps as the person who had robbed them.
But a 2020 investigation by the Hillsborough County State Attorney’s Conviction Review Unit found several problems with the process, and identified new witnesses to corroborate Hopps’ alibi.
The Tampa detectives had mailed the collection of photos to the victims’ home in Georgia, instead of coordinating with local law enforcement, the report found. And Hopps did not match the victims’ description of the robber: He was bearded, tall and skinny, while the victims described a short, muscular intruder with a mustache and no beard.
“The method… did not meet Tampa Police Department standards in 1990,” read the report. “If this method had been used today the identification through the photo array would likely be suppressed.”
Former Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren told the Tampa Bay Times in 2021 that “there is no valid evidence to suggest Hopps committed the crime and there is substantial evidence to suggest he did not do it.”
Hopps’ exoneration came months after that of Robert DuBoise, a Tampa man who spent 37 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of a 1983 murder.
DuBoise sued the city of Tampa, the retired police detectives who arrested him and a forensic dentist in 2021. Three years later, he was awarded $14 million.