A U.S. District Court judge has agreed to hear a $20 million lawsuit filed by John Ryan Schlamp, whose conviction on charges related to the stabbing death of student Brandon Malstrom in 2002 was overturned earlier this year.

The suit accuses State’s Attorney Glenn Ivey of allowing a police officer to perjure on the stand during Schlamp’s 2003 trial. Schlamp was convicted of common-law riot for his alleged role in Malstrom’s stabbing, but that conviction was overturned by the Maryland Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this year because they found that prosecutors had unfairly applied the rarely used riot charge.

The suit also names Assistant State’s Attorney Fran Longwell, both University Police and Prince George’s County Police, and the judge that presided over Schlamp’s trial, charging that they all had knowledge of the officer’s false testimony.

Malstrom, 20, was stabbed in the chest behind a house on Princeton Avenue after a late-night fight over a stolen cell phone on Homecoming Weekend. Three men were eventually charged in his death, but it was unclear who wielded the knife because of confusion related to the scuffle. Under pressure to file charges, Schlamp’s father, John Randolph Schlamp has said, prosecutors used questionable evidence to convict his son.

Though it is not unusual for a federal judge to agree to hear a suit such as Schlamp’s, John Randolph Schlamp said he believes the suit is a significant legal step toward substantiating his son’s position.

“This is major to go to U.S. District Court. They don’t just give it to you,” he said. “To even be accepted in U.S. Court, it has to be a substantive case. I think this is a big achievement.”

According to testimony given during the 2003 trial, Prince George’s County homicide Detective Ismael Canales initially told a judge under oath he had a witness who told him that Quan Lewayne Davis – a Hanover man also convicted of riot and openly possessing a deadly weapon – stabbed Malstrom. But when Canales was questioned as to who that witness was, he could not provide an answer.

“It was the totality of everything that was provided to me throughout this case, this investigation,” Canales testified.

Canales is protected by a law that does not allow officers to be prosecuted on charges that they lied under oath, known as perjury, but the law does not shield prosecutors and other officers who had knowledge of the perjury.

A spokesman for Ivey was unable to contact a reporter for this story, but Ivey has in the past called the lawsuit “frivolous.” When the lawsuit was initially filed in July, Ivey doubted that the lawsuit would even go to court.

Schlamp said he decided to take the case to the federal level because he felt he didn’t trust the case would be sufficiently tried on Ivey’s home turf of the Prince George’s County Courts.

But even after the case was accepted, and even though it will be heard on a neutral court, Schlamp has been unable to find an attorney to represent him pro bono, which is a way for lawyers to represent someone without asking for money up front.

“We can’t afford the kind of attorney for how long this is going to take,” John Randolph Schlamp said. “Ivey is a Harvard Law School graduate and should be considered one of the top lawyers in the state of Maryland … Ivey’s a .400 hitter. We need an all-star attorney.”

Contact reporter Owen Praskievicz at praskieviczdbk@gmail.com.