NYC will pay $17.5 million to man who was wrongly convicted of 1996 murders

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City will pay $17.5 million to a man who spent 24 years in prison for a double homicide he did not commit. The settlement in the case of George Bell was first reported by The New York Times on Thursday. Bell was one of three men convicted for the 1996 killing of a Queens check-cashing store owner and an off-duty police officer. A judge threw out the convictions in 2021 and they were released from prison. The judge said prosecutors had withheld evidence that other people might have committed the slayings. Bell was 19 when he was arrested in 1996. He initially confessed to involvement in the killings but later recanted.