A Minnesota man who spent nearly 25 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of murdering his wife is now suing the former Ramsey County medical examiner and others, alleging they “fabricated a crime that never occurred.”

Thomas Rhodes, 64, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Minnesota on Friday, a year to the day after he was freed from prison because the conviction was vacated after an investigation by the state’s Conviction Review Unit.

A Kandiyohi County jury in July 1998 found Rhodes guilty of first- and second-degree murder in connection with the death of his wife, Jane Rhodes, who went overboard and drowned during a nighttime boat ride with Rhodes on Green Lake in Spicer, Minn., on Aug. 2, 1996. He was sentenced to life in prison.

The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office announced a year ago that it had agreed to vacate Rhodes’ conviction after concluding the evidence was unreliable. The office said the testimony of Dr. Michael McGee, Ramsey County’s chief medical examiner from 1985 to 2019, was the “linchpin” of the case and cited “increasing scrutiny” of his work.

It marked the first time someone was freed from incarceration because of an investigation and case review by the state’s conviction review unit, which was launched in 2020.

“I have gained my freedom,” Rhodes said in a statement Tuesday. “I now look forward to justice.”

In addition to McGee, the lawsuit names former Kandiyohi County Attorney Boyd Beccue, who died in 2021, as well as Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office Capt. William Chandler. It also names Ramsey, Hennepin and Kandiyohi counties.

“Defendants not only fabricated evidence … they fabricated a crime that never occurred,” the lawsuit says.

Changed determination to ‘homicide’

The complaint alleges that McGee and Chandler “fabricated unsupported conclusions in reports and gave false testimony stating the death was a premeditated homicide, despite all scientific evidence to the contrary.”

The complaint also alleges that Beccue met with McGee to help manufacture a case against Rhodes.

“This meeting occurred before a grand jury was empaneled and prior to a decision to seek an indictment,” the lawsuit asserts. “At the time this meeting took place, there was not probable cause to arrest or prosecute Plaintiff Rhodes.”

At the meeting, Beccue provided McGee with circumstantial facts that were “completely unrelated to the medical or scientific evidence,” including that Rhodes and his wife previously had marriage problems and that on the night of the incident officers perceived that he could not identify the precise location where she had fallen into the water, the lawsuit says.

McGee then “disregarded the scientific evidence” and changed his determination on the manner of her death from “pending investigation” to “homicide,” the lawsuit says.

Based on McGee’s testimony and autopsy report, prosecutors argued at the time that Rhodes “intentionally grabbed his wife by the neck, pushed her overboard, and ran her over multiple times,” according to last year’s summary by Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office.

As part of the unit’s review, 10 forensic pathologists scrutinized the medical evidence and disagreed with McGee’s finding that the death was a homicide, according to the lawsuit.

One was Dr. Sally Aiken, a former president of the National Association of Medical Examiners, who found that there was no medical support for “McGee’s opinion that Jane received multiple blows by a boat,” the lawsuit states. She also found the medical evidence did not support the finding that Jane Rhodes suffered a blow to the neck in the way McGee concluded and that there was no evidence to support the finding that she was pushed from the boat, the lawsuit continues.

The lawsuit alleges constitutional violations and “malicious prosecution” under state law. It demands a jury trial, and seeks monetary relief and punitive damages. Rhodes is being represented by People’s Law Office in Chicago and Minneapolis attorney Tim Phillips.

“Thomas Rhodes is an innocent man who lost nearly 25 years of his life due to these defendants conspiring to falsely implicate him for the accidental death of his wife,” Brad Thomson, a People’s Law Office attorney, said Tuesday. “Over two decades in prison caused unfathomable harm and injustice. With this lawsuit, we intend to bring the defendants’ egregious misconduct to light and seek the measure of justice still owed to Mr. Rhodes.”

Neither McGee nor Chandler could be reached for comment Tuesday. Spokespeople for Hennepin County and the Hennepin County sheriff’s office said they cannot comment on pending litigation. Kandiyohi County’s administrator did not return a request for comment. A Ramsey County spokeswoman referred questions to the Ramsey County attorney’s office.

Review ongoing

In November 2021, the Ramsey County attorney’s office launched an outside review of McGee’s work in cases that had been prosecuted by the attorney’s office. The move followed a decision by a federal appeals court judge who concluded that McGee’s testimony was “unreliable, misleading and inaccurate” in the murder trial of Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., who was convicted of killing 22-year-old Dru Sjodin in 2003. Rodriguez’s death sentence was overturned, and he’s serving life in prison with parole.

Ramsey County’s review is ongoing, Dennis Gerhardstein, spokesman for the  attorney’s office, said Tuesday. Late last year, the attorney’s office extended a contract with the Prosecutors Center for Excellence to complete a second phase and begin work on a third phase, Gerhardstein said.

Since the review is limited to Ramsey County cases only, it does not include Rhodes’ past criminal conviction. However, the lawsuit “will be shared with PCE for their awareness,” Gerhardstein said, “and further updates about PCE’s review of Ramsey County cases involving Dr. McGee will be provided to the public when it is appropriate to do so.”

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