Innocent man released from prison finds new life in New Tampa

The 2,477-square-foot house he bought last month is the most spacious dwelling James Bain has ever lived in.

There’s a big-screen television in the living room and a pool with a hot tub out back. He has parked his new SUV in the three-car garage and took special care that his soon-to-be stepdaughter’s bedroom is decked out, from pillowcases to curtains, with a Hello Kitty theme.

His family wouldn’t have these luxuries, Bain said, if he hadn’t served more than three decades of hard time.

Convicted of rape in 1974 but exonerated by DNA evidence in 2009, the state recently paid Bain $1.75 million. Under Florida law, inmates found wrongly convicted get $50,000 for every year they were imprisoned.

Although he lost his entire youth in prison, Bain, 55, said the freedom and financial security he has now makes him feel like he has won the lottery.

“In a sense, I have,” he said. “I just want to support my family.”

The Innocence Project of Florida, which worked to free Bain, helped him find financial planners and accountants to manage the money. Seth Miller, the executive director of the Tallahassee-based nonprofit organization, said accountants were able to structure Bain’s money in such a way that it would “set him up for the rest of his life.”

That hasn’t stopped him from working to earn his GED in hopes of landing a job.

The Innocence Project screens and investigates cases with strong evidence — typically biological — that a person has been wrongly imprisoned.

Since 2003, the nonprofit group, which has offices across the United States and in four other countries, has helped exonerate 272 inmates.

Bain got a chunk of cash upfront to pay for the house and the 2011 Ford Explorer, which has a base price of $26,000. The three-bedroom, two-bath home in a gated subdivision in New Tampa has an assessed value of $176,299, according to Hillsborough County property records.

The former Lake Wales resident said the only thing he has to buy is more furniture before he gets married in September to Mallelin Duran Nallely, his girlfriend of 15 months.

“I only get money when I need it,” he said. “I’d like it to be there for the rest of my life.”

Bain was 19 when he was convicted of kidnapping a Lake Wales boy, then raping him on a baseball diamond not far from the child’s home. Bain hadn’t graduated from high school and had only vague notions for the future, other than finding some means to support his mother and sister, he said.

He was certain he would grow old in Lake Wales, a small town 28 miles southeast of Lakeland known for the Bok Tower Gardens attraction.

Then his life took a 35-year-long detour beginning at midnight of March 5, 1974. Police showed up at his front door and put him in handcuffs.

“I was with friends that night, hanging out,” Bain said. “I was astounded when police knocked on the door. My alibi, it didn’t work, as you can see. They paid it no attention.”

The boy told detectives the attacker had bushy hair and a mustache, court records show.

The victim’s uncle, a former high school assistant principal, said the description fit Bain, whom the uncle knew when Bain was a student. Detectives then showed the boy photographs of possible suspects, including Bain.

According to the boy’s deposition, detectives didn’t ask the victim to identify the attacker and instead asked him whether he could “pick out Jimmy Bain.” Court records show police denied asking that question and said they showed the boy five photographs. The boy pointed to Bain’s, investigators said.

Bain maintained his innocence during the investigation and the trial. At the hearing where he was sentenced to life in prison without parole, Bain said he was numb.

“It was so hard,” he said. “I couldn’t do nothing but look at my mother and family.”

The boy’s true attacker has never been identified.

The first day in prison terrified Bain. The fear never went away.

“From Day One to the day of my release, I was afraid,” Bain said. “By the time I served 10 years, I thought I would die there.”

He kept the fear at bay by working in the prison’s laundry room, welding and making furniture. From time to time, he got in trouble. Bain was given 21 citations during his prison term. He was disciplined twice for drug possession and once for having a weapon in the 1970s and late 1980s, records show.

His infractions became less serious as he got older; he was cited for fighting three times from 2006-07.

“I was just trying to stay alive,” he said.

Bain said he learned about DNA testing from a fellow inmate who was working toward a law degree. In 2001, Bain started filing motions for DNA tests but was denied each time.

The key piece of evidence was the boy’s underwear, which had been stored at the Polk County Clerk of the Circuit Court’s Office. The DNA samples had not degraded, even after 35 years.

The Innocence Project took over Bain’s case in 2009, and the state attorney’s office in Polk County agreed to a test. When the results came back, a judge and prosecutors agreed that Bain didn’t rape the boy on that spring night. At a hearing on Dec. 17, 2009, Circuit Judge James A. Yancey signed orders vacating Bain’s 1974 judgment and conviction.

“Mr. Bain, I’m now signing the order,” the judge said from the bench. “Sir, you are a free man. Congratulations.”

The courtroom erupted in applause. Bain said he felt like he had “landed on the moon.”

Bain went to live with his mother, Sarah Reed, in Tampa. On the first morning as a free man, he woke up singing and sat down to a pancake breakfast. He doesn’t remember what the songs were, only that the melodies were upbeat and hopeful.

“I was just rejoicing,” Bain said.

On the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday in 2010, Bain was invited to Philadelphia by a civil rights group to ring a replica of the Liberty Bell at Independence Hall. He also traveled to Germany, where he was interviewed on talk shows and became a folk hero.

“In Germany, the maximum sentence for any crime is 15 years,” he said. “So they looked at me and was amazed I served 35.”

A few months later, after he registered to vote and got his driver’s license, Bain met his future fiancee when he visited his sister at work. He wanted to be with Nallely the moment he saw her.

“At first sight,” Bain said. “It was an instant thing.”

The couple are planning a September wedding and a honeymoon in Cuba, where Nallely grew up.

Bain said he has adjusted to the 21st century, to cellphones and computers and high-definition television.

Miller, of the Innocence Project, said he’s thrilled Bain has gotten his life back together.

“We knew it,” Miller said. “He has the good makeup to handle this.”

Bain still considers himself a country boy at heart. He addresses people as “sir” or “miss.” He visits his mother frequently and goes to church with her every Sunday.

“He still helps out around the house,” his mother said. “I’m proud of him. He’s getting adjusted to most everything now.”

He has his new house, with a living room so big that his old 7-by-14-foot prison cell could fit inside. He has his new car and soon, his new bride and his 4-year-old stepdaughter, Neon, whom he calls “Boo-Boo” or “Pumpkin.”

So there’s no reason to harbor bitterness over what happened, he said.

“I left that behind upon my release,” he said. “I’m just happy being out, being in society.”