DANBURY, CONN. — Fernando Bermudez, whose 1992 murder conviction was overturned in 2009 in a case championed by the Innocence Project, will speak about his experience at Western Connecticut State University on Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2014.

“Racism and Wrongful Imprisonment: Freed After 18 Years” will be held at 5:30 p.m. in the Student Center Theater on the WCSU Midtown campus, 181 White St. in Danbury. Bermudez will be joined by Stephen Saloom, strategic advisor at the Themis Fund, which supports anti-death penalty efforts nationwide. The talk will be free and the public is invited.

Internationally sought-after speaker Bermudez sought to overturn his conviction for the August 1991 shooting of Raymond Blount in New York City’s Greenwich Village area by filing 10 appeals over 17 years. New York State Supreme Court Justice John Cataldo ruled in 2009 to dismiss murder charges on grounds that the discrediting of key testimony and recantation of eyewitness identifications at the 1992 trial had left no credible evidence connecting Bermudez to the crime.

Bermudez’s case received national attention following publication in April 2007 of a New York Times report that explored allegations of wide-ranging deficiencies in the police investigation leading to the indictment and conviction of Bermudez for the murder of Blount, a 16-year-old boy slain in a street confrontation following an earlier fight in a Greenwich Village nightclub. The Bermudez appeal received significant support from the Innocence Project, an independent litigation and public policy organization that defines its mission as a dedication “to exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice.”

Saloom, who holds a law degree, joined the Innocence Project as its policy director in 2004. Prior to that, he directed state policy efforts for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. He has also served as executive director of the Massachusetts-based Criminal Justice Policy Coalition, intake attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts and lobbyist on behalf of numerous nonprofit organizations at the Connecticut legislature.

For more information, contact WCSU Professor of Social Sciences Dr. Averell Manes at manesa@wcsu.edu or the Office of University Relations at (203) 837-8486.

Western Connecticut State University offers outstanding faculty in a range of quality academic programs. Our diverse university community provides students an enriching and supportive environment that takes advantage of the unique cultural offerings of Western Connecticut and New York. Our vision: To be an affordable public university with the characteristics of New England’s best small private universities.