Man in prison hopes report will free him
Friday, February 16
- Organization: Winnipeg Free Press
"I'm just vibrating," Frank Ostrowski said moments after seeing a noon-day news report on the release of the Driskell report.
"Jim's a nice guy. I'm so glad he's been vindicated. The police and the justice system have to be taught a lesson."
Ostrowski said his case is almost identical to Driskell's wrongful conviction. The province has agreed to review cases like Ostrowski's, but it's unclear what the process will be.
"I should get bail. I should be let out. My case is a mirror image to Jim's and more so. I should not be locked up."
Ostrowski, 56, has spent more than 20 years in prison for the first-degree murder of small-time drug dealer Robert Nieman. Ostrowski wasn't accused of pulling the trigger -- two other men were.
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But Ostrowski maintains he had no reason to want Nieman dead as Nieman knew nothing about him.
He said another man, his former drug dealing partner Matthew Lovelace, gave him up to police in exchange for a deal on his own cocaine possession charges.
The Driskell inquiry was told last August that deal was made before Ostrowski's trial and not disclosed to the jury.
"They withheld that information from the jury," the Rockwood Institution inmate said. "I should not be here."
Ostrowski said he should know within days how soon the province will re-open his conviction.
The release of the Driskell report may also impact the conviction of another Rockwood inmate. Jon Waluk was convicted by a jury of second-degree murder in the 1987 killings of a Winnipeg mother and her two children. Dangerfield was the prosecutor.
Another man was convicted of pulling the trigger and convicted on three counts of first-degree murder. Larry Fisher has since died in prison.
Waluk claims he was wrongly convicted on the testimony of a key witness and the theory he should have done more to prevent the killings.At his trial, Waluk testified that he saved husband Terry Kirton's life by pushing him out a bathroom window.
"I want to correct everything," Waluk said in an earlier interview. "I need to clear my family name."
