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Gerard Dumone will never forget October 30th, 2020. You know, we had to go to the court.

My mother went, my sister went, my grandkids went, and when I went to the courtroom

and they say that I was innocent, it was a totally different feeling.

It's still like a cloud lift off my head, a bird lift off of me, you know?

October 30th, 2020 was the day that Demond was exonerated for a murder he never committed.

The exoneration came after he'd spent 29 and a half years in prison.

And I was just so happy to have to hear the district attorney said,

Mr. DeMong, we apologize, our office apologized to you.

Apologies do not repair a life broken by incarceration, nor do they return lost time with

family, missed opportunities, the means to support oneself.

So Dumont sued the state and city of New York, believing justice would not be fully served

until they repaid some of what had been

taken from him. Once I found not guilty I'm not going to sit here and lie I was

in thinking about I said yeah now I'm going to have some money that's the icing on the cake.

The lawsuit could potentially bring him millions of dollars but litigation is a

years long process and Demond who had next to nothing after leaving prison, needed money to start

his life immediately.

It was a very hard transition.

I didn't have no money, no nothing.

...