A federal judge has awarded more than $344,000 in legal fees to a former prisoner who sued the Justice Department seeking answers about a 1988 explosion that killed six Kansas City firefighters, for which he spent nearly 22 years in prison.

Bryan Sheppard, who maintains his innocence in the explosion, filed the lawsuit after his release in 2017. He petitioned under the Freedom of Information Act, seeking the disclosure of records stemming from a federal review of the case. That review was prompted by a Kansas City Star investigation that raised questions about whether federal investigators engaged in misconduct.

“This case is not about whether the Star’s allegations are indeed true or whether the five individuals convicted of the 1988 arson are actually innocent,” Sheppard’s attorneys wrote in the lawsuit, filed in the Western District of Missouri in December 2017. “Instead, it is about whether a federal government agency reviewing the actions of its own investigators and prosecutors, should be allowed to conclude unilaterally, without any public review or accountability, that the agency and its personnel have done nothing wrong.”

Sam Harrel/ASSOCIATED PRESS/AP

Investigators search through a highway construction site, Nov. 29, 1988, in Kansas City, where explosions shattered windows over a 10-mile area and killed six firefighters. (AP Photo/Sam Harrel)

Brian Sheppard spent nearly 22 years in prison before he was released in 2017.

A federal judge has awarded more than $344,000 in legal fees to a man who sued the Justice Department under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) after spending nearly 22 years in prison for the 1988 arson fire that killed six Kansas City firefighters.

Bryan Sheppard, who was released from prison nearly five years ago, filed the lawsuit in late 2017, seeking documents from the Justice Department that he said would prove his innocence and that of the other four defendants convicted in the case.

In 1997, a federal jury found Sheppard and the other defendants guilty of setting fire to a trailer in the early morning hours of Nov. 29, 1988, at a highway construction site near U.S. 71 and 87^th Street. The trailer, which contained 25,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil, blew up, triggering massive explosions that killed the six firefighters who had responded to the fire.

Subsequent investigative stories by a Pulitzer Prize- winning reporter for The Kansas City Star, the late Mike McGraw, suggested that several government witnesses had lied at the trial, government representatives had used coercive tactics to fabricate evidence and individuals other than the defendants had committed the arson .

As a result of McGraw’s stories, the U.S. Attorney in Kansas City asked the Justice Department in 2008 to conduct an independent review of the case.

In 2011, the Justice Department released a two-page summary of its findings concluding there was no “credible evidence” to support the claims of witness coercion. But the summary also said investigators had uncovered “newly developed pieces of information” suggesting other people may have been involved in the arson. No other persons, however, were charged in the case.

In releasing the summary, the Justice Department refused to release an unredacted version of the 20-page report on which the summary was based.

View the movie here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVDUVOu9dlM

(December 14^th, 2021) The tragic case that shook Kansas City, Missouri awake over 33 years ago may now have a chance to be solved. Thanks to the Kansas City Police Department for releasing their file, new evidence has emerged. In “A Quest For Closure: The Kansas City Firefighters Case Part 1," the KCPD and federal agents had local and national media outlets implicate people in the crime without supporting evidence.  The prosecution then won a conviction many are now calling into question after it was found that a key police report and crime scene photos were not handed over to the defense. In Part 2, coming out in 2022, the focus will be on how the crime was carried out according to the documented evidence and what went wrong.  Visit http://kcfirefighterscase.com for more information.

Rest In Peace, brothers. 6 members of KCFD’s Pumper 30 and Pumper 41 gave their lives in service to the citizens of Kansas City, MO on this day, 33 years ago. We have not forgotten your sacrifice. pic.twitter.com/A3AkgVUBWC — KC Fire Fighters (@IAFFLocal42) November 29, 2021

On November 29, 1988, six Kansas City Fire Fighters from KCFD Pumper 30 and KCFD Pumper 41 started their shift and would never return home. Overnight before the end of their shift they would perish from a tragic explosion. #NeverForgotten

— KCFD (@KCMOFireDept) November 29, 2020

Dear Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas,

Last Friday, I read your Facebook message praising the decision by Judge Fernando Gaitan of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri not to release my codefendant Darlene Edwards from her life sentence for the 1988 explosion that killed six Kansas City firefighters. Five people were convicted of setting the fires that caused the deadly blast, but I remain the only one who has been released early from prison.

I want to respond to your comment that “our current times shouldn’t be a get out of jail free card for those inflicting historic pain on families in our community.” I know you are a man committed to truth and justice. I know you are passionate about innocence and unjust sentencing practices. So I trust you will be open to considering the perspectives of people such as Darlene and me.

On my release day four years ago, four people greeted me — two I had thought of daily during my 20 years in prison, and two others who were a complete surprise.

The first two were my elderly mother, who had supported me throughout my life, and my daughter, now a grown woman. She knew me for most of her life only through bulletproof glass or collect call. I prayed for this day for so long: hugging my mother and my daughter without being told by a prison guard to let go.

The third and fourth people greeting me came in the form of a letter that was waiting for me. The letter was from James Kilventon, the son of one of the six firefighters who were killed in the blast, and his wife Tracey. They wrote to say that they had spent the past several years reading The Kansas City Star’s investigative reporting that had shed so much light on this miscarriage of justice. They wanted to meet me.