A man awarded $1.2 million for the decades he spent wrongfully imprisoned in Virginia is facing charges in Florida.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that 60-year-old Michael Kenneth McAlister was arrested Oct. 8 in Orlando on a felony charge of possession of cocaine and misdemeanor charges of resisting arrest and destruction of evidence. Records show he pleaded not guilty and was released on bond.
The paper says McAlister declined to comment on the new charges; his lawyer didn't return phone calls. The paper reports that if convicted in Florida, it appears McAlister risks losing much of his wrongful-imprisonment award.
McAlister served almost 30 years in prison after being convicted of the 1986 attempted rape of a woman in South Richmond. He was pardoned in 2015 after the real assailant confessed.
