On May 29, 2025, Corey Brock was exonerated of sexual assault, armed robbery and weapons charges in Oakland County, Michigan, more than 25 years after he pled guilty and was sentenced to seven to 32 years in prison.
The exoneration followed an investigation by the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office’s Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) which revealed that the prosecution allowed him to plead guilty even though DNA testing had excluded him as a perpetrator in the crime. The CIU worked with Brock’s attorney, Melissa Krauskopf.
The DNA exclusion had not been disclosed to Brock or his attorney at the time of his plea.
The crime for which Brock was charged occurred in Pontiac, Michigan, on December 22, 1998. Joshua Cantor and J.H. called police to report that two men had robbed them and both had also sexually assaulted J.H. The perpetrators were identified as “John” and “Eric.” Cantor said he knew them from being in jail with them. He said they had been hanging out with Cantor in Pontiac and went with him to drop off and later to pick up J.H. at the strip club in Flint, Michigan, where she worked.
J.H. said that both men sexually assaulted her in the back seat of the Jeep that Cantor was driving.
Police collected swabs of body fluids from the backseat of the Jeep. No fingerprints were collected. One of the perpetrators was described as having a “wandering eye.”
In January 1999, the police interviewed Connesha Harris, who said that Brock, who was 18 years old, and 17-year-old David Harris had sold fake drugs to a white man and woman. She said that Brock told her that he and the white woman had sex. At first, she said the incident happened the night before, but then said it happened a week ago. She turned over clothing that she said belonged to Brock and David Harris, but none of it matched the description given by Cantor and J.H.
On January 4, 1999, Brock voluntarily went to the police station. He did not confess to anything and asked to take a polygraph examination. He was released without taking the polygraph.
In the meantime, J.H. came to the police station and viewed a photographic lineup of six men, including Brock, who was the only one in the lineup with a wandering eye. She picked Brock as one of her attackers.
On January 11, 1999, Cantor viewed a photographic lineup, but did not identify Brock. Cantor viewed some yearbook photographs and identified Harris as one of the perpetrators.
By February, Cantor was in Oakland County boot camp after he was found in violation of his probation imposed for a conviction for filing a false police report in an unrelated case.
On February 17, 1999, arrest warrants for Harris and Brock were issued. Both were arrested on February 23. Police obtained blood, saliva, and hair samples from them.
A probable cause hearing was held in Pontiac District Court on March 30, 1999. Cantor testified and only identified Brock, saying he was the man he knew as “Eric,” who had a “very bloodshot red” eye. “[L]ike he had something wrong with his eye.”
During his testimony, Cantor admitted he smoked four rocks of crack cocaine throughout the incident. He said that “Eric” and “John” kept giving him crack.
J.H. identified both Harris and Brock as the two men who sexually assaulted her.
Brock and Harris were bound over for arraignment in Oakland County Circuit Court. On June 21, 1999, Brock was administered a polygraph examination. A subsequent interview was not recorded, and Brock did not sign any waiver of his Miranda rights or sign any statement. The polygraph examiner opined that Brock was not truthful. A police report said that Brock had wept and said “what the girl stated in court is true.”
Harris took a polygraph examination on August 6, 1999, and he also was deemed to have been deceptive. Both men were indicted on charges of armed robbery, criminal sexual conduct, and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony.
On April 7, 2000, Brock pled guilty to the armed robbery and firearm charges. He pled no contest to criminal sexual conduct. He was sentenced to five to 30 years in prison on the armed robbery and criminal sexual conduct charges plus a mandatory consecutive two-year sentence on the firearm charge.
A presentence report noted that Brock had been a special education student and had dropped out of school after the ninth grade. When he was sent to the Michigan Department of Corrections, an assessment revealed that he was unable to read or write and could only print his name. He was functioning at the level of a second-grade student.
Meanwhile, the case against Harris was still pending, though it was getting more complicated. J.H. admitted that she lied when she identified Harris at the preliminary hearing. She said she only identified him in court because he was sitting next to Brock and because the prosecutor told her that if she did not, Brock would “walk.”
On January 23, 2001, the prosecution dismissed the case against Harris.
Over the years, Brock learned to read and write. He began writing letters to various judges professing his innocence and asking for DNA testing in his case. Most of his missives wound up in his court file with no action taken. In June 2022, Judge Rae Lee Chabot signed an order appointing Krauskopf to the case.
In August 2022, Krauskopf submitted a request to CIU Director Beth Greenberg Morrow. The CIU was already investigating the case based on the letters sent by Brock. Krauskopf, working cooperatively with the CIU, quickly learned that when the prosecution dismissed Harris’s case, its petition, signed by prosecutor Ronald Covault and approved by prosecutor Paul Walton, said that DNA testing had excluded both Harris and Brock. There was no such notice in Brock’s case file, although she saw that the petition to dismiss Harris’s case originally had Brock’s case number on it. The number had been “scribbled out,” and Harris’s case number had been written in its place.
Based on her work and the CIU investigation, Krauskopf, in December 2024, filed a motion for relief from judgment on behalf of Brock.
The motion noted that on August 5, 1999, about eight months before Brock pled guilty, DNA testing of the evidence had been completed by the Michigan State Police crime laboratory. Brock and Harris were excluded as the sources of male DNA found on the swabs from the Jeep, swabs from J.H., and swabs from J.H.’s underwear.
“There is absolutely no indication that this information was disclosed to Mr. Brock’s attorney,” the motion said. “Furthermore, there is also no indication that Mr. Brock himself was aware of this information.” The CIU filed a concurring response.
The motion said that the case files revealed that prosecutor Walton had requested DNA testing of a sample from J.H.’s boyfriend at the time. Walton subsequently cancelled that request, even though the lab had finished testing, the motion said.
On June 14, 2000, Walton authored a memo in Harris’s case recommending that it be dismissed. He noted that Harris and Brock had been excluded as the source of male DNA. The motion said that apparently Brock had been interviewed by the prosecution to see if he would testify against Harris, but he had refused. In the meantime, J.H. had left her job and dropped out of sight.
During the CIU investigation, J.H. said she had been told that Brock’s DNA was found and assumed that was why he had pled guilty. The CIU also interviewed Harris, who said that neither he nor Brock committed the crime.
Walton submitted an affidavit asserting that he did not withhold the information from Brock or his attorney.
On February 14, 2025, the CIU filed a response agreeing that the convictions should be vacated.
On May 7, 2025, Judge Mary Ellen Brennan vacated Brock’s convictions. “Defendant filed a motion for relief from judgment…arguing that his pleas were defective because the prosecutor withheld exculpatory evidence,” the judge wrote. “In response, the prosecutor admits that the plea proceeding was defective and requests that Defendant’s motion for relief from judgment be granted...Defendant’s pleas are set aside and the convictions and sentences are vacated.”
Following the vacatur of Brock’s convictions and sentence, the matter was turned over to the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office, which had been responsible for the prosecution of Brock and Harris. Walton no longer worked there, but by then was the Chief Assistant Prosecutor in the Lapeer County, Michigan Prosecutor’s Office.
On May 29, 2025, David Williams, Chief Assistant Prosecutor under Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald, petitioned to dismiss the case and the charges were dismissed.
The petition conceded that exculpatory evidence had not been disclosed to Brock. At the same time, the petition declared, “It is important to make the record clear…that the People do not assert that the assistant prosecutor [Walton] intentionally withheld evidence from Mr. Brock’s attorney, and the People are not aware of any evidence that would suggest misconduct on the part of the assistant prosecutor.”
The charges were dismissed, and Brock was released. He had spent 25 years, one month and 23 days in prison since the day he pled guilty, plus 409 days in custody prior to the plea.
– Maurice Possley
Posting Date: 06-06-2025
Last Update Date: 06-06-2025
