A Portland man is suing several government entities, alleging he served prison time for causing a fatal overdose that never happened.

Devin Rowell, 35, filed a lawsuit against the Oregon Department of Corrections, Portland Police Bureau, Multnomah County, city of Portland, and Multnomah County DA’s Office on December 23. According to the complaint, Rowell was convicted in 2015 for delivery of heroin. He was sentenced to 13 months in prison with two years of post-prison supervision. He was released in June 2016.

His attorney, Michael Sahagian, claims Rowell was told by PPB Officers Carrie Hutchinson and Tequila Thurman that his distribution of heroin caused the death of someone who obtained the opioids from another person. The lawsuit alleges police, as well as then-Deputy District Attorney Ryan Lufkin, knew the information wasn't true, but repeated the claim about a fatal overdose in an attempt to get Rowell to plead guilty to drug charges, which he eventually did.

It wasn’t until 2024 that Rowell learned the supposed OD victim was still alive, after Rowell’s mother saw a news story about a lawsuit against local agencies over a false claim of the overdose death.

In 2025, Portland City Council approved a $300,000 settlement with the plaintiff in that lawsuit, Adam Gregg. Gregg was one of two other defendants named in the drug crime indictment alongside Rowell in 2015. Prosecutors indicated the three men were all found to be delivering heroin in June 2015. 

Gregg’s lawsuit spurred Rowell to take his own legal action against the police, state prison system, and county prosecutor’s office.

Sahagian, Rowell’s attorney, noted that by the time Rowell learned of his potential innocence, he’d already served his full prison sentence and post-prison supervision. 

Sahagian did not respond to requests for comment.

In 2024, Rowell’s attorney, along with a deputy district attorney in the Multnomah County DA’s Office, petitioned the court to reconsider Rowell’s conviction, citing evidence that the alleged victim was confirmed to be alive in 2022.

“At the time of resolution, this case was negotiated from the posture of an overdose death investigation,” the petition stated. The legal filing indicates that a defense attorney for Gregg, Rowell’s co-defendant in the 2015 case, informed the DA’s Office in 2022 that his client had “just learned the alleged deceased was actually alive.”

“The Justice Integrity Unit initiated an investigation and confirmed that the individual was still alive when the original sentence was imposed,” the court petition noted. 

Rowell’s lawsuit seeks $1.18 million for negligence and wrongful imprisonment.

“In addition to the considerable mental anguish of being imprisoned, he believed for the better part of a decade that his actions led to the death of an innocent person,” the lawsuit states. “Further, Plaintiff missed significant life events and has been subjected to harsher sentencing since the time of his conviction via his criminal history on the Oregon Sentencing Grid being artificially inflated by this conviction.”

Court records indicate Rowell was arrested and charged again in 2018 for delivery of heroin and giving false information to a police officer.  

The Multnomah County DA’s Office declined to comment on the veracity of the claims made in Rowell’s lawsuit. 

“We are not able to comment because we have not yet had a chance to discuss the case with the Attorney General’s Office,” Pat Dooris, a spokesman for MCDA, told the Mercury. 

If the case goes to trial, it will be an odd role reversal for the DA’s Office. Prosecutors will become defendants in a case brought against them by a man they convicted of felony crimes more than a decade prior.