Lake County >> Luther Jones spent nearly two decades locked up for a crime he didn’t commit. This week, the terminally ill 71-year-old inmate was released after his supposed victim said the child abuse claims that put him in jail for 18 years were lies her mother allegedly coached her to tell.
The woman, now 30, who was supposedly molested by Jones when she was 10 years old came forward on Feb. 9 when she contacted the victim witness division of the Lake County District Attorney’s (DA) Office and said her testimony was a sham, according to court documents filed by DA Don Anderson. Two days later, DA investigator Denise Hinchcliff and deputy DA Ed Borg conducted an interview during which she fully recanted her accusations.
Hinchcliff reported that she decided to come clean because “she was tired of having a ‘heavy heart’ about Luther Jones.” The woman had confided with some family members that her accusations were false, and it was her grandmother who encouraged her to confess earlier this month.
She said the likely motive was that her mother, Elizabeth Woods, was involved in a custody dispute with Jones over their 2-year-old child. It remains to be seen whether the DA’s office will seek charges against Woods.
According to court documents, Jones received custody of the girl on Aug. 28, 1996, just two days prior to when the supposed victim, then a fifth grader, told her principal at Lower Lake Elementary School she was abused.
The woman detailed the elaborate false story which she testified in court saying that Jones molested her five times. In one instance she said he slapped her when she resisted his advances and said he told her “If you tell anybody, I’ll track you down like a dog and shoot you.”
Jones denied the statements during the 1998 trial, but was ultimately found guilty on four different counts on April 8 and was sentenced to 27 years in prison two months later.
With the woman’s new testimony, Anderson successfully petitioned on Tuesday at the Lake County Courthouse for Jones to be released.
“Judge Andrew Blum cut through what might have otherwise been a tremendous and needless delay by eliminating a later hearing and making the order for release then and there,” attorney Angela Carter said in an email on Tuesday after his ruling. “Judge Blum didn’t let one more day pass, he ordered that Mr. Jones be immediately released … He used his judicial authority to right a wrong.”
At the time of Blum’s decision, Jones was in custody at San Joaquin General Hospital in Stockton due to his failing health related to his kidney and liver. He was released on Wednesday into the custody of his son who resides in Lake County.
“Hopefully he lives long enough to enjoy some freedom at the end of his life,” Carter said.
