A man whom a judge this year declared innocent in the 2000 killing of a Coquille teen received a total of $14 million to settle his wrongful conviction claims, according to records filed in U.S. District Court in Portland this week.
The state of Oregon agreed to pay Nicholas McGuffin $9 million and the city of Coquille and its police officers involved agreed to pay $5 million, according to court records. The settlement was first reported by Oregon Public Broadcasting.
The agreement with the state settles the wrongful conviction lawsuit McGuffin filed in Marion County Circuit Court.
McGuffin, 43, and his school-age daughter also have a separate federal lawsuit against the state, the city of Coquille and Coos County. It remains active against Coos County.
Coos County has so far not agreed to a settlement with McGuffin, said his lawyer, Janis Puracal. Puracal is executive director of the Forensic Justice Project, a small nonprofit with the mission of identifying and preventing wrongful convictions based on flawed forensic science.
She declined to comment on the settlements with the state and Coquille.
McGuffin served nine years in prison for the Leah Freeman killing, though he was never tied to the crime through DNA, physical evidence or eyewitnesses.
McGuffin always maintained his innocence. Freeman was McGuffin’s girlfriend; she was 15.
Freeman vanished June 28, 2000, after leaving a friend’s house. One of her shoes was found by a cemetery in town that night; the other about a week later off a rural road. Her body was found five weeks later down a steep embankment. It was so badly decomposed, the medical examiner could not determine how she died.
Her boyfriend at the time was McGuffin. Then 18, McGuffin was investigated for the crime but not charged until several years later.
In 2019, a judge overturned McGuffin’s conviction because the Oregon State Police crime lab failed to disclose finding another man’s DNA on Freeman’s shoe. The judge concluded that crucial DNA information could have led the jury to acquit McGuffin.
The Coos County district attorney declined to try the case again. The Coos County Circuit Court dismissed the charges and McGuffin was released from prison.
In 2024, McGuffin filed a wrongful conviction lawsuit against the state, alleging he only learned about the presence of another man’s DNA on Freeman’s shoe after his conviction and accused the state of withholding critical evidence during the trial.
“McGuffin had absolutely nothing to do with the abduction or murder of Leah Freeman,” his lawsuit states.
This year, a state court judge issued McGuffin a certificate of innocence.
A spokesperson for the Oregon State Police declined to comment. An attorney for Coquille did not respond to a request for comment.