A man whose conviction was overturned in a 1991 double homicide has sued the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI claiming investigators withheld evidence that could have cleared him.

Timothy John Kennedy spent nearly 14 years in prison after a jury found him guilty of first-degree murder in the killings of Jennifer Carpenter, 15, and her boyfriend, Steve Staskiewicz.

In May 2009, 4th Judicial District Judge Thomas Kane set aside that verdict and ordered a new trial based in part on new DNA evidence.

The District Attorney’s Office has appealed Kane’s ruling to the Colorado Court of Appeals, where the case is pending. Kennedy, 54, was released from prison and remains free on bond.

In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Denver, Kennedy contends he was the victim of false arrest, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution and wrongful conviction.

Named as defendants in the suit are Mark A. Finley, the lead investigator in the case; Ernest Roger Peele, an FBI analyst who testified on bullets recovered from Kennedy’s home and vehicle, El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa, his predecessor John Anderson and the FBI.

Sheriff’s spokeswoman Lt. Lari Sevene said her office had not yet been served with a copy of the suit so she could not comment on it at this time. An FBI spokesman said his office also would be unable to comment.

The suit claims that prior to the March 11, 1991, murders, the Sheriff’s Office was aware that two El Paso County Jail inmates, Charles Stroud and Becky Corkins, “were soliciting various parties to murder Carpenter and her boyfriend Staskiewicz.”

At the time, Carpenter was a key witness in a pending case involving kidnapping and sex assault against Stroud and Corkins, the suit stated.

Prior to the slayings, investigators had placed Carpenter in protective custody and were trying to get a deposition from her because of the danger she was in, the suit claims. But she managed to slip away and returned to Staskiewicz.

The suit also claims the Sheriff’s Office intercepted two letters that detailed efforts to eliminate Carpenter as a witness. But the letters were not turned over to the District Attorney’s Office, the suit states.

The suit also contends Peele relied upon faulty science when he testified that lead from the bullets used to kill the victims matched ammunition found in Kennedy’s possession.

Kennedy claims Finley initially was unable to convince prosecutors to file the charges and left the Sheriff’s Office. But he returned under Anderson and was allowed to revive it as a cold case investigation.

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