Biography
Esaw Booker was wrongfully imprisoned in a Los Angeles drug case later overturned during the investigation of police misconduct associated with the Rampart scandal. He was arrested on April 14, 1992, after an undercover operation involving officer Rafael Perez. Booker maintained that Perez had falsely implicated him because he interfered with the undercover operation. A jury convicted him on October 5, 1992, and he received a nine-year prison sentence.
Booker challenged the conviction through a federal habeas corpus petition. After Perez was charged in a separate corruption case, prosecutors told the court they no longer had confidence in the evidence against Booker. A federal judge vacated his conviction on February 7, 2000; the state court granted a separate petition and dismissed the charge on February 17. Booker had already been paroled in 1997 after approximately five years in prison.
