Chris Rock is carrying regret over a choice he made years ago involving a man who spent nearly two decades behind bars for a murder he did not commit.
During a new interview with The New York Times, the 61-year-old actor and comedian revealed that he once flat-out refused to pay for a lawyer for Roger Logan, the brother of one of his closest childhood friends.
“His brother used to plead with me to pay for a lawyer for Roger, and I never did it,” Rock told the publication.
Logan ultimately served 19 years before his wrongful conviction was addressed. The Times reported that he later settled with New York City for $3.75 million and with New York State for $2.975 million.
Rock explained that while he was willing to help people with expenses such as mortgages or education, legal bills made him uneasy because “it’s so open-ended.”
“And it still f–ks with me,” he said of Logan. “I had the means to help him, and I didn’t. I don’t know if we could’ve got him out or not, but still.”
Rock said that he also experienced being wrongly accused by the cops while growing up in Brooklyn, saying he had been placed in a lineup “two, three times.”
“You’ve seen enough cop movies to know that behind that window is a person,” he said, adding that one identification could mean “your whole life’s over.”