Wikipedia online - New York Post online -
Oliver Jovanovic sued Fairstein [viz Central Park 5], alleging that she engaged in ‘false arrest, malicious prosecution, malicious abuse of process and denial of his right to a fair trial’. This lawsuit stemmed from Fairstein’s successful prosecution of Jovanovic in the case People v Jovanovic, which was subsequently overturned on appeal. It was dismissed with prejudice by a new trial judge. The dismissal was requested ‘in the interest of justice’ by the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Robert M Morgenthau.
There was no physical evidence linking Jovanovic to the crime. While his accuser claimed she had been brutally attacked and left bleeding, she was found to have only a few fading bruises. ‘If she [Fairstein] couldn’t tell this was a false report, well, I am just shocked,’ said former New York City sex crimes detective John Baeza, who worked in defense of Jovanovic after leaving the force.
The $10 million lawsuit against Fairstein and two co-defendants, former Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Gail Heatherly, who now teaches at the Columbia Law School, and New York City Police Detective Milton Bonilla, was dismissed on summary judgment in September 2010. Wikipedia online entry Linda Fairstein
Oliver’s Twist; Freed Man Sues in Cybersex Case: A man who was cleared on charges he was a cybersex fiend – after spending 20 months in prison – has slapped a famed sex-crimes prosecutor and police with a $20 million civil-rights suit for ‘malicious abuse’ and false arrest.
‘There was a tremendous miscarriage of justice. There was no medical or forensic evidence to back up the accuser’s claims,’ Oliver Jovanovic’s lawyer, Jon Norinsberg, said after filing the civil-rights complaint in Manhattan federal court.
The Columbia University graduate student was convicted in 1998 of kidnapping and sexually brutalizing a woman he met online. The accuser claimed that Jovanovic tied her to a futon, bit her breasts and dripped candle wax on her bare skin.
But a panel of state judges tossed out the conviction because the trial judge refused to let jurors see sex-drenched e-mails the accuser sent him.
Jovanovic was officially exonerated in November 2001 after prosecutors backed off retrying the case, saying Jovanovic’s accuser was unstable.
By that time, Jovanovic had already spent 20 months in an upstate prison, and had been stabbed in the neck by another inmate. New York Post online article Carl Campanile 29 October 2014