Inmate rotting on death row for 25 years claims bomb report is ‘completely INNOCENT’

Richard Glossip, 59, has been sentenced to death after being convicted twice for ordering the killing of his boss Barry Van Treese, who owned a hotel where he worked

An inmate on death row for 25 years for ordering his boss’s assassination is “completely innocent”.

Richard Glossip, 59, has been sentenced to death after being convicted twice for ordering the killing of his boss Barry Van Treese – who owned a hotel where he worked.

Glossip directed Justin Sneed, a handyman, to beat and rob Mr Van Treese in January 1997 after he was paid $10,000 (£8,000) to complete the deal.

After pleading guilty to beating Van Treese to death with a baseball bat in a room at the hotel, Sneed is serving a life sentence without parole.

He was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on September 30, 2015 at Oklahoma State Penitentiary. But it was canceled because the pharmacist had supplied the wrong drug.

In a stunning new report from law firm Reed Smith – prepared for the state of Oklahoma – they claim key evidence in Glossip’s case was lost or destroyed.

They also believe that a detective had asked Sneed leading questions to intentionally implicate Glossip.

Stan Perry, an attorney for Reed Smith who prepared the report for free, said: “Our conclusion is that no reasonable juror, hearing the full record and the facts uncovered, would have convicted Richard Glossip of capital murder.”

Lawyers allege that evidence destroyed in late 1999 or early 2000 included financial records.

This was before Glossip’s retrial and after his first convection and death sentence were overturned.

As a result, lawyers claim they could have contradicted prosecutors’ argument that Glossip wanted to hide his alleged robbery from the hotel where he was a manager.

The report states: “This loss or destruction of evidence appears to be so critical to the defense as to raise serious doubts as to the fundamental fairness of the criminal proceedings against Glossip.”

Glossip’s attorney, Don Knight, said, “In the coming days, Mr. Glossip’s defense team will file a request for a hearing with the Oklahoma Circuit Court of Appeals so that this new evidence of innocence may be examined in court.”

Republican State Representative Kevin McDugle of Oklahoma believes the report shows Glossip is innocent.

He said: “We have one person who has been on death row for 25 years and I believe that he is completely innocent.”

Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater said he was reviewing the report but previously believed Glossip was guilty after reviewing evidence.

He also said in the past he would support a retrial for first-degree murder and would seek the death penalty again for Glossip.