Minnesota man wrongfully imprisoned 25 years in wife's drowning death sues officials

The first person freed from prison through Minnesota's new conviction review unit is now suing a former medical examiner and other authorities, alleging that they fabricated and withheld evidence to wrongfully convict him of his wife's murder.

Thomas Rhodes, now 64, was freed from prison in January 2023, nearly a quarter-century into a lifetime sentence for first- and second-degree murder in connection with his wife's drowning during a nighttime boat ride on Green Lake in Spicer, Minn., in 1996.

Rhodes' lawsuit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Minnesota, takes aim at former Ramsey County Medical Examiner Michael McGee, whose conduct has triggered multiple convictions and sentences to be tossed out in the past two decades. Rhodes' lawsuit alleges that, together with now-deceased Kandiyohi County Attorney Boyd Beccue and a Hennepin County investigator, McGee fabricated unsupported conclusions and provided false testimony to describe Jane Rhodes' death as a premeditated homicide.

"I have gained my freedom," Rhodes said in a statement Tuesday. "I now look forward to justice."

Jane Rhodes died after falling overboard during a late evening boat ride with her husband in July 1996. According to the lawsuit, neither person was wearing a life jacket at the time and Jane fell after losing her balance while leaning forward.

Rhodes failed to find his wife in the dark waters after a frantic search, and two fishermen found her body along the shore the next day. Rhodes cooperated with deputies and took a breathalyzer test that found no alcohol in his system.

Because Kandiyohi County's coroner had limited experience assessing drowning victims, McGee examined Jane Rhodes' body and listed her manner of death as "pending investigation." That status remained in place for five months, until McGee and Beccue held what Rhodes' attorneys called an improper private meeting used by the prosecution to "attempt to influence the determination as to the cause and manner of death."

Beccue offered up "circumstantial facts that were completely unrelated to the medical or scientific evidence" — noting that the couple had marriage problems and that officers "perceived" that Rhodes could not pinpoint precisely where Jane had fallen into the water.

McGee soon changed his conclusion, saying that Jane's manner of death was a homicide. McGee and prosecutors argued that Rhodes struck his wife on the neck, pushed her overboard and ran over her body with the boat.

The Minnesota Conviction Review Unit, launched by Attorney General Keith Ellison in 2021, later found that Beccue's office withheld the transcript of an interview with McGee, who said he was unsure if Jane Rhodes was struck once or multiple times after going overboard.

Ten independent forensic pathologists meanwhile disagreed with McGee's homicide conclusion. Dr. Sally Aiken, an expert retained by the review unit and cited in the lawsuit, found no medical support for McGee's opinion that Jane Rhodes received multiple blows by a boat, and no evidence that she suffered a blow to the neck or that she was pushed from the boat.

Rhodes' murder convictions were vacated last year. In order to be released from prison, Rhodes agreed to enter an "Alford plea" to second-degree manslaughter. Prosecutors concluded that the lesser charges were warranted because Rhodes drove a small and unstable boat in the dark while not wearing a life jacket, knowing his wife was not a strong swimmer. Such a plea allows defendants to formally admit guilt while still maintaining innocence.

McGee's work has been under scrutiny in recent years. The Ramsey County Attorney's Office said last year that it would review more than 70 criminal convictions linked to McGee, who was the county medical examiner from 1985 to 2019 and continued working for the department as a forensic pathologist for two more years before retiring.

Federal district and appellate judges recently excoriated McGee for his findings that supported a 2006 federal death penalty sentence for Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. in the kidnapping and killing of University of North Dakota student Dru Sjodin. McGee's opinion in the case, a judge said, was "so unmoored from a scientific basis that it should not have been received at all." Rodriguez later received a new sentence of life without parole.

A Douglas County judge in 2011 found that McGee provided false testimony that led to Michael Ray Hansen's conviction for killing his infant child, for which he wrongfully spent six years in prison. The Wisconsin Court of Appeals reversed the 2003 murder conviction of Evan Zimmerman for killing his former girlfriend, based on fabricated autopsy and testimony from McGee.

Hennepin County Sheriff's Office Capt. William Joseph Chandler, then a member of the water rescue team, is also named in the lawsuit and is accused of drafting police reports that Rhodes' attorneys say contained "demonstrably false information intended to paint the misleading picture that Plaintiff Rhodes was lying about Jane's accidental death."

Calls to a phone number listed for McGee were not answered. Messages have been left seeking comment from the Kandiyohi County Attorney's Office, and a Hennepin County Sheriff's Office spokesperson declined to comment on pending litigation.

Rhodes' new federal lawsuit alleges numerous constitutional violations, as well as a conspiracy to deprive him of his constitutional rights and "malicious prosecution" under Minnesota law.

He is being represented by the People's Law Office in Chicago and attorney Tim Phillips in Minneapolis. Their suit is demanding a jury trial and for Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz to award monetary and punitive damages linked to each defendant. Because Beccue died in 2021, Rhodes' attorneys are asking that a representative be appointed in this case.

"Thomas Rhodes is an innocent man who lost nearly 25 years of his life due to these defendants conspiring to falsely implicate him for the accidental death of his wife," said Brad Thomson, an attorney representing Rhodes. "Over two decades in prison caused unfathomable harm and injustice. With this lawsuit, we intend to bring the defendants' egregious misconduct to light and seek the measure of justice still owed to Mr. Rhodes."