Man who was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to 400 years is freed after 34 years in jail
A man who served more than 34 years of a 400-year sentence for an armed robbery was released from a Florida jail this week after prosecutors dismissed charges against the wrongly convicted man.
“I never lost hope and always knew this day would come,” Sidney Holmes, now 57, said when he learned he would walk free, according to a statement from the Innocence Project of Florida, which worked on his case. “I cannot wait to hug my mother in the free world for the first time in over 34 years.”
Holmes contacted the conviction review unit of the Broward County state attorney’s office in November 2020, saying he was innocent of the 1988 crime, the office said.
Holmes was arrested in October 1988 in connection with an armed robbery that June of two people outside a convenience store in unincorporated Broward County, just west of Fort Lauderdale, according to the state attorney’s office.
Accused of being the driver for two unidentified men who committed the robbery, he was convicted by a jury in April 1989 and sentenced the next month, according to the state attorney’s office.
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