A Leicester man has filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Worcester and five officers, alleging he was wrongfully charged in a 2020 stabbing death because of his race.
Dana Gaul, 43, argues in the suit that Worcester police officers fabricated evidence and ignored DNA test results suggesting he was not involved in the stabbing. The suit adds that witnesses described the perpetrator as thin, light-skinned and 5 feet, 7 inches tall. Gaul, by contrast, is Black, weighs 200 pounds and is 5 feet 10 inches tall.
“Plaintiff is a Black man, and but for his race, defendants would not have targeted him for unlawful arrest, imprisonment, and/or malicious prosecution based on the flimsy evidence it had,” the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court says. “In fact, the witnesses to the murder described the assailant as white, a description that does not match plaintiff.”
The five officers named in the lawsuit are Joseph A. Albano, Elisa Baez, Dan Heavey, Sean Lovely and Tim Foley.
In an email, Worcester Police Lt. Sean Murtha declined to comment on the court case, citing pending litigation.
Gaul was arrested in the November 2020 fatal stabbing of 19-year-old Jehlon Rose. After Gaul was indicted in June 2021 and spent five months in prison, the Worcester County district attorney’s office dismissed charges against him in February and began focusing on another suspect.
The lawsuit notes that DNA evidence found on the victim’s body and clothes did not match Gaul’s DNA. Gaul did not know Rose and was nowhere near the scene of the stabbing, his lawyers say. The lawsuit also claims that police coerced some people — who were not at the scene of the stabbing — into saying that grainy surveillance video of the suspect looked like Gaul.
“Plaintiff was entirely innocent and there was never any legitimate evidence connecting him to the murder,” the lawsuit says.
Although Gaul is happy to be free, his lawyers said he’s suffered emotional trauma and loss of liberty from the wrongful arrest.
