{"id":135048,"date":"2026-01-28T15:28:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T15:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/135048\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T15:28:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T15:28:08","slug":"florida-lawmakers-push-compensation-for-groveland-four","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/135048\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida lawmakers push compensation for Groveland Four"},"content":{"rendered":"

GROVELAND, Fla. \u2014 A state senator from Orlando is pushing a significant bill that would compensate the descendants of the Groveland Four – four men who were falsely accused of raping a woman in Lake County in 1949. <\/p>\n

Samuel Shepherd, Walter Irvin, Charles Greenlee, and Ernest Thomas were posthumously pardoned by the state of Florida in 2019.<\/p>\n

And two years later, Rep. Geraldine Thompson successfully pushed to have them fully exonerated.<\/p>\n

A Florida Senate committee unanimously advanced a bill on Tuesday that would provide compensation to their descendants.<\/p>\n

Rep. Rashon Young has filed a bill in the Florida House that is also on the move.<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here<\/a> to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.<\/p>\n

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TOP STORIES FROM WFTV CHANNEL 9<\/p>\n

\u00a92026 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GROVELAND, Fla. \u2014 A state senator from Orlando is pushing a significant bill that would compensate the descendants…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135049,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[66153,66154,28,66155,66157,30325,17789,634,115,139,141,140,66156,66151,4214,40610,1045,66152],"class_list":["post-135048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-charles_greenley","tag-ernest_thomas","tag-florida","tag-geraldine_thompson","tag-gracie_davis","tag-groveland","tag-lake_county","tag-local","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-rashawn_young","tag-samuel_shepherd","tag-senate","tag-senator","tag-video","tag-walter_irvin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}