Graham sues feds over ‘unjust conviction’

By Mannix Porterfield Register-Herald Reporter Bob Graham spent 13 months behind the bars of a federal prison on a conviction that he cashed in $31,129 in sick leave payments without getting approval of the buyout from the Wyoming County Council on Aging while serving as the agency’s director. Now that a three-judge panel has declared him innocent and set him free, Graham is suing the U.S. government for “wrongful conviction.” Under law, the maximum damages he can claim is $50,000 in the federal lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Claims. Graham sees his suit as “pretty much cut and dried,” but emphasized he wouldn’t characterize it as “a slam dunk.” “What this complaint is about is unjust conviction and imprisonment, including, but not limited to, deprivation of liberty, loss of earnings, and all that,” he said in an interview this... [read full story]