Man imprisoned for false OD death to receive $300K settlement from Portland

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – Eleven out of 12 Portland City Councilors voted to pay a $300,000 settlement to Adam Gregg, a man who went to prison over a drug overdose death that never happened.

Gregg spent five and a half years after he pleaded guilty to selling heroin that killed someone. But he sued Portland police officers and a former deputy district attorney because once out of prison, he learned the man whom he was told he killed was alive.

This stems from a May 2015 incident to which Portland police responded when a man overdosed on heroin, but ultimately lived. The lawsuit says two Portland police officers, Tequila Thurman and Carrie Hutchison, arrested Gregg for selling the heroin, telling him he had to cooperate because he sold heroin that killed someone. Gregg agreed to plead guilty after prosecutors also told him he killed someone, according to the lawsuit. Gregg was sentenced to 80 months in prison.

After getting out of prison, Gregg learned his guilty plea was based on something that was not true, which sparked a civil suit against the two officers and former Multnomah County Deputy District Attorney John Copic, seeking $5.5 million in damages. Gregg said he watched Wednesday morning’s Portland City Council meeting, where they approved paying him the $300,000 settlement. He said he was happy to see the council recognize the harm that came with his time in prison.

“But also the idea of having to come to terms and take account for being responsible for another person’s death who wasn’t actually dead, as well as the distrust that comes along with having believed that because people in power told me it was true,” Gregg said.

Gregg said he takes accountability for selling drugs in the past and admits he made mistakes. But he said the lawsuit was to highlight harm he suffered in the process.

“Due process isn’t about what someone says a person did or how bad the thing is, or you know, how much time they should serve,” Gregg said. “It’s that everyone is entitled to have an opportunity to fair treatment within our system.”

Councilor Eric Zimmerman was the lone no vote on the settlement, telling his fellow councilors the city did not prosecute this case and Gregg pleaded guilty to the charge.

“Given all of that and this idea that we’re going to negotiate with drug dealers, I feel very dissatisfied with being brought this settlement,” Zimmerman said. “When you do the time for the crime you committed and pled to, I don’t see the concern here.”

Gregg said he respects Zimmerman’s point of view.

“I don’t hold any ill will towards the position that, you know, this is a thing where an individual has done poor things in the past,” Gregg said. “But I think that ultimately the what this settlement represents is an accounting for harms that were done by the police officers.”

According to the Portland Police Bureau, Thurman is no longer with the bureau, while Hutchison remains employed. The civil case against the former prosecutor Copic was dismissed because of absolute immunity for the prosecutors, but Gregg said he is appealing that dismissal. Gregg’s conviction was vacated in 2022. Now he is nine years sober and in his third year of law school at Lewis & Clark College, trying to become a civil rights lawyer.