Chaunte Ott spoke quietly to the five members of the State Claims Board Wednesday as he asked for compensation for the 13 years he spent in prison for a crime a court found he didnâ??t commit. “I had absolutely nothing to do with the murder of this child,” Ott said in seeking $25,000, the maximum allowed under state law for a wrongful conviction. “This is absolutely against my nature. Iâ??ve never been a violent person.” The Milwaukee County district attorneyâ??s office declined to refile charges against Ott, 36, in June after DNA from a serial murder suspect was found on the body of 15-year-old Jessica Payne. The Wisconsin Innocence Project also had presented evidence that the two men who implicated themselves and Ott in the 1994 murder on Milwaukeeâ??s North Side had fabricated their testimony under intense police pressure.
Office of Strategic Communication