Two Angelenos served 17 years for a crime they didn’t commit. Here’s why they’re free now

A judge has vacated the first-degree murder sentences of two Angelenos who were wrongfully convicted in 2009, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced on Monday.

Charlotte Pleytez and Lombardo Palacios were in prison for 17 years for the murder of Hector Flores, a man who was shot and killed in his car in East Hollywood near a 99 Cent store. They’ve since been exonerated and released.

What led to the decision

Former D.A. George Gascón originally brought the case to the court in October when he was in office. He took issue with the way witness identification was handled, saying the conviction was not based on factual evidence.

Pleytez was identified out of a mug shot book with only two women in it, and two out of the three identifications were not definitive. Palacios was also 15-years-old when he was pressured into a confession during interrogation, a process that’s now illegal in California. (The interrogation video was not shown to the jury.)

Lombardo Palacios, pictured here at 15 years old during an interrogation where detectives could be heard saying, “I’m going to walk out of here thinking you’re just a little gangster who doesn't care about a person’s life. But one way or the other, we’re walking out of here knowing you killed somebody.”

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Screenshot of footage showed at news annnouncement

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However, on Monday, Hochman said there was no evidence showing the original investigating officers or prosecutors did anything inappropriate given the information available. Hochman continued with the case based on the comparison of what he called “new evidence” that emerged in 2021 and the previous findings.

Hochman, who declined to share those details citing an ongoing investigation, invited the original prosecutor to attend a presentation of the case by the Conviction Review Unit on Tuesday.

“[They] came to the same conclusion that I did, that the conviction no longer had the confidence of this office and needed to be set aside,” Hochman said.

In 2021, law student Nicolas Tomas spotted issues with the case and pursued it as a wrongful conviction. He took on Palacios as a client and worked with others, including Pleytez's attorney Matt Lombard and leaders at California Innocence Advocates, to push it forward.

“When I saw the facts of this case, I couldn't turn a blind eye to it,” Tomas said, adding that there was no physical evidence that linked them to the case. “Both individuals spent 6,415 days each in prison for a crime they did not commit.”

Hochman said after the presentation his office worked quickly to get them out of prison before the court’s holiday closure. Investigators picked the two up at Central California prisons so the case could be heard before Judge William C. Ryan on Friday.

‘I’m the happiest man in the world’

Lombardo Palacios poses with his mom, Claudia Ortiz, after being found factually innocent in Los Angeles on Friday, Dec. 20, 2024.

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Allen J. Schaben

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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

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At the news conference, the newly freed Angelenos stood by their families and expressed gratitude. But they also shared how it’s been an adjustment.

Pleytez woke up Friday night worrying her release was another mistake and that authorities would come back. She’s been adapting by spending time with her daughter, mother, and dog, Versace.

Pleytez, who was two months pregnant at the time of arrest, recounted what incarceration has cost her. After her daughter was born, she said authorities only let her see her twice for about 10 minutes each. Her daughter is now 17.

“I'm so grateful for the system that exonerated us, but I worry still about the system that convicted us in the first place,” Pleytez said, adding there are other people deserving of justice.

The pair appealed their convictions for years.

Palacios even had a earlier opportunity to seek juvenile resentencing, but he refused because there was a requirement to write a statement of remorse. Tomas said the only thing he wanted was a factual innocence claim.

Now that he’s free, Palacios said he’s the happiest man in the world. Since Friday, he’s been spending time with his family and enjoying Dallas Cowboys football games on a flat screen TV.

“At one point I thought there was no God,” Palacios said. “I’m the living proof that he exists. He made a miracle happen to me and my family.”