GASTON COUNTY, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — A Gaston County man wrongfully convicted of murder is suing the investigators who put him behind bars for nearly a decade.
Mark Carver walked out of prison in 2019, eight years after being sentenced to life for the murder of UNC-Charlotte student Irina Yarmolenko.
Yarmolenko was found strangled on the banks of the Catawba River in 2008.
In 2022, Carver's murder charge was dropped.
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He's now suing the city of Mount Holly, one of the prosecutors, and investigators with several police agencies that worked on the case.
Carver claims in the lawsuit that they "misrepresented evidence, disregarded evidence, and manipulated evidence...to manufacture the case for arrest."
"We do believe the investigation was a rush to judgment," said Christine Mumma, the executive director of the North Carolina Center for Actual Innocence. "It was incomplete."
Mumma worked to overturn Carver's conviction.
She's not involved in this latest lawsuit but says it's an effort to hold people responsible and hopefully prevent this from happening to someone else.
"When someone is incarcerated for something they didn't do, it takes a toll emotionally, psychologically, [and] physically that doesn't go away," Mumma said. "Mark still suffers from his wrongful incarceration."
The lawsuit says Carver is disabled physically and intellectually, and "despite his obvious intellectual challenges, the State manipulated him during interviews."
It also accuses investigators of ignoring other possible suspects and manipulating DNA testing to create a match with Carver.
Carver is suing for damages, claiming his 4th and 14th Amendment rights were violated.
His cousin, Neal Cassada, was also charged with the murder but died before his trial started.
The State Bureau of Investigation and Gaston County Police both declined to comment on the pending litigation.
Carver's attorneys didn't immediately respond Monday to Queen City News' messages.
Neither did the Gaston County District Attorney's Office.
The city of Mount Holly declined to comment on the lawsuit.
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