Vegas woman wins $29.5M settlement after spending 15 years in prison based on murder evidence fabricated by cops
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A woman spent nearly 16 years in prison after Las Vegas police officers planted evidence to tie her to a 2001 murder. Now, nearly a decade after she was found innocent and released from prison, she’s receiving a $29.5 million settlement from the police department.
Kirstin Blaise Lobato was arrested in 2001 by the Las Vegas Metro Police Department for the murder of Duran Bailey. She was 18 years old at the time. The man’s body showed signs of being beaten and his penis had been severed. In 2006, she was sentenced to 13 to 35 years in prison.
In 2017, the Nevada Supreme Court dropped Lobato’s charges and ruled that she be released from prison. She was 35 when she was released.
Two years after her release, Lobato filed a lawsuit against the LVMPD claiming that its detectives framed her. She named two officers, Thomas Thowsen and James LaRochelle, in her lawsuit, FOX5 reports.
The filing accused the detectives of fabricating evidence, mischaracterizing her statements, and falsely suggesting that she confessed to the murder.
At the time, her attorney argued that she had an alibi placing her in Panaca, Nevada — approximately 170 miles away — at the time of the murder.
During her trial, Lobato testified that she had been attacked by a man in a different part of Las Vegas and had slashed at his lower body with a knife when he tried to sexually assault her.
Detectives claimed her story was essentially a confession, though Lobato insisted she never admitted to severing a man’s genitals.
A U.S. District Court Judge ruled in her favor in December 2024. Lobato was awarded $34 million. Both officers were ordered to pay Lobato $10,000 each in damages.
Following the ruling, the LVMPD appealed, which could have resulted in Lobato waiting several more years before she’d have a chance to receive the full $34 million, according to the Las Vegas Review Journal.
According to Lobato’s attorney, David Owens, settling with the department will allow Lobato the chance to leave the murder in the past.
“Imagine if you had some legal matter hanging over your head for nearly 30 years,” he told the paper. “It’s just time to move on and be done and so I think that’s the biggest thing I would say. It’s over, there’s no more court proceedings about the murder of Duran Bailey in 2001.”
He told FOX5 that Lobato “can finally move on with her life with some sense of justice and put this horrific series of events behind her.”
Owens told media outlets that Lobato had no personal comment to add.
Following her release in 2018, Nevada presented Lobato with a Certificate of Innocence, which formally states that she is innocent.
