Insurer Fights Paying $5.3M to Wrongfully Convicted Missouri Man

A former insurance carrier for the city of Columbia, Mo., is appealing a ruling that it owes $5.3 million to a man who served 10 years in prison before his conviction for killing a sports editor in Columbia was thrown out.

The Columbia Daily Tribune reports that the appeal comes one month after a judge found that St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance owes Ryan Ferguson the award comprised of $1 million for each year incarcerated, $854,000 in attorneys fees and $150,000 for reimbursement of Ferguson’s criminal defense expenses. Ferguson had sued the insurer to collect part of an $11 million payout awarded last year.

Ferguson was in jail from the time of his arrest in March 2004 until he was released from prison in 2013.

in the 2001 killing of Columbia Daily Tribune Sports Editor Kent Heitholt.