Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin is threatening to withhold state funding from Richmond until the city pays the $5.8 million the governor says the city owes to a man who spent 45 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.

Last year, Marvin Grimm — who was convicted in 1976 — was formally exonerated of the charge that led him to spend most of his life in prison. According to a letter Youngkin sent Mayor Danny Avula last week, the city has not yet paid Grimm the millions he’s owed for his ordeal.

“The background that led to Mr. Grimm's wrongful imprisonment is horrific,” Youngkin wrote to Avula. “In order to secure a conviction, employees of the city did illegal and despicable things to a human being and a fellow citizen of Richmond.”

A city spokesperson said Monday morning that the city was reviewing the governor’s letter and “does not have comment at this time.”

Richmond police arrested Grimm and linked him to the death of a 3-year-old boy who had disappeared from an apartment complex and was found in the James River. Grimm successfully proved his innocence decades later, making his wrongful incarceration case the longest in Virginia history and one of the longest in U.S. history.

Grimm confessed to the murder and sexual assault of the boy. He later recanted his confession, insisting he was innocent and had been coerced into pleading guilty in order to avoid the death penalty.

Due to numerous problems with the prosecution — including suppression of evidence that undermined the case — Grimm won a writ of actual innocence from the Virginia Court of Appeals in 2024. After being denied parole dozens of times, he was paroled in 2020 but continued to pursue his innocence claim.

With help from the Innocence Project and the Arnold & Porter law firm, Grimm presented the court with new evidence showing that hairs linking him to the crime didn’t come from the boy, that DNA crucial to the prosecution didn’t come from him and that the timeline laid out by prosecutors didn’t align with evidence showing high levels of alcohol and drugs in the boy’s system.

Attorney General Jason Miyares supported Grimm’s innocence claim, hailing the case as “a textbook example of why Virginia provides actual innocence relief.”

A torn shoe belonging to Grimm was also a key piece of evidence in the case, even though testing at the time found no soil or debris indicating the shoe was damaged by the riverbank.

Earlier this year, the General Assembly approved $5.8 million in compensation for Grimm. Under a new law also approved in the 2025 legislative session, when a wrongful conviction is the result of intentional malfeasance by local officials, the locality is now required to match the amount of the state’s compensation.

In Youngkin’s letter, the governor said Richmond must match the state amount because of its “indisputable and corrupt involvement in his wrongful conviction and incarceration.”

“To date, the city has ignored its responsibility and has not responded to Mr. Grimm's counsel,” Youngkin wrote.

If the city does not pay Grimm by Aug. 15, the governor said he will withhold state funding from Richmond, a power explicitly granted to the governor under the state’s newly revised procedures on rectifying wrongful convictions.

“Mr. Grimm deserves better treatment from the City of Richmond, and I trust you will promptly rectify this situation,” Youngkin wrote.

The governor’s letter, which was dated Friday, came four days after Grimm’s legal team asked Youngkin to help by applying pressure on Richmond. The state proceeded with its payment to Grimm shortly after July 1, the date new state and local budgets took effect.

Jeffrey Horowitz, an Arnold & Porter attorney representing Grimm, told Youngkin he had been trying to engage with city officials since April to verify Richmond’s payment will occur. Horowitz said the city hasn’t even agreed to a meeting to “discuss the matter” and hasn't responded to a June 17 letter addressed to Avula and City Attorney Laura Drewry. 

In that letter to the city, Horowitz said Grimm would not waive his rights to sue the city for compensatory damages until his legal team received confirmation the city would make its matching payment.

“Having suffered through 45 years of wrongful incarceration followed by an additional 5 years of suffering with the restrictions related to being included on the Sex Offender Registry — all the result of the wrongful misconduct of Richmond and Commonwealth Officials — justice demands that Mr. Grimm be promptly paid the compensation to which he is entitled,” Horowitz wrote to Youngkin. 

“The Commonwealth has promptly met its statutory obligation, but Richmond has not. After patiently waiting for the legislative process to conclude following his exoneration more than a year ago, this 70-year-old man should not be subjected to further delay due to Richmond’s failure to meet — or even to acknowledge — its obligations.”

Contact Reporter Graham Moomaw at gmoomaw@richmonder.org