Kyle Unger files $14.5M wrongful-conviction lawsuit

Kyle Unger — a Manitoba man jailed 14 years in a teenage girl's murder — is suing federal and Manitoba justice officials, along with the RCMP and prosecutors, for wrongfully convicting him.

Unger is seeking a total of $14.5 million in damages, according to a statement of claim filed in the Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench on Wednesday.

"It's a claim alleging basically that he was wrongfully convicted, wrongfully imprisoned, and suffered significant losses and injuries as a consequence," Greg Rodin, one of Unger's lawyers, told CBC News.

Unger spent 14 years in a B.C. prison for the sexual assault and killing of 16-year-old Brigitte Grenier in 1990.

She was beaten, strangled and sexually mutilated at a rock concert in the small Manitoba community of Roseisle, about 120 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg.

Unger was acquitted in 2009, after the murder charges were withdrawn in part because DNA testing showed no trace of him on the available evidence.

"He's lost a lifetime of building a career," Rodin said of Unger, who currently lives in B.C.

"He's lost all kinds of opportunities to lead a normal life, so I don't know how you could ever catch up."

Unger had originally confessed to undercover police officers who were part of a sting operation known as "Mr. Big," in which the officers posed as criminals and promised money to a targeted suspect to help them out.

Unger's statement of claim names the RCMP, individual RCMP members, Crown prosecutors and federal and provincial justice ministers.

One of the prosecutors named is George Dangerfield, now retired, who has come under fire in recent years because convictions in a number of his cases have been overturned.