Douglas Echols never backed off his claim of innocence in the 1986 kidnapping and rape of a Savannah woman.

The case hung over his head for 16 years.

A conviction in 1987 sent him to prison, where he served seven years.When DNA tests in 2001 seemed to clear him, he was granted a new trial. Prosecutors dropped charges against him instead.

But when Echols, through then-State Rep. Tom Bordeaux, tried to get $1.6 million in compensation from the state, Chatham County District Attorney Spencer Lawton Jr. intervened.

In a suit filed last week in U.S. District Court in Savannah, Echols contends Lawton interfered improperly.Lawton's actions, performed "in his apparent capacity as the Chatham County District Attorney," were an unconstitutional interference and a violation of his civil rights, Echols contends.

His suit alleges Lawton sent correspondence and e-mails to state legislators contending Echols remained "under indictment for rape and kidnapping" when he knew that was untrue.

State Sen. Jack Hill, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, had asked Lawton for a response to Echols' request for compensation.

Lawton insisted legislators "should not give (Echols) the benefit of the presumption of innocence of the crimes of rape and kidnapping," the suit contends.

The prosecutor's actions, the suit contends, were intended to retaliate against Echols "for exercising his constitutional rights to freedom of speech and to petition the government for redress of his grievances."

Echols, 47, never got compensation.

The suit seeks unspecified damages.

Savannah attorney Richard Middleton, who filed the action for Echols, declined comment Friday, citing local federal court rules.

Lawton also declined comment.

He will be represented by the state attorney general's office in the case.

Because of the time delay, it is unlikely prosecutors could, or would, retry the rape and kidnapping case.

But in his motion granting Echols a new trial, Chatham Superior Court Judge Michael Karpf made it clear neither Echols nor his co-defendant - Samuel Harold "Iceman" Scott - had been exonerated by his July 2002 new-trial order.

Bordeaux, who left the legislature in 2007, said he introduced the resolution but wasn't told of Lawton's objections. "He totally blindsided me," Bordeaux said. "He's done them dirty two times."

Lawton's message, Bordeaux said, was, "I think those guys were guilty. I don't want you to pay them a dime."

Bordeaux, who is an attorney, said if Lawton felt that way, he should have re-indicted the pair and tried them.

"His duty is to go out and prosecute the guys who did it if he feels that way," Bordeaux said. "If he doesn't feel that way, he needs to keep his mouth shut."