AURORA, Mo. -- It's been more than 10 years since Ted White Jr. first faced allegations that would change the course of his life.

Earlier this month, White won a civil lawsuit for $16 million.

KCTV5 Investigative Reporter Ash-har Quraishi spoke with Ted White and jurors who served on two of his three criminal trials.

"I think the motivation was money, greed, lust … all those ingredients," White said.

After five years in prison, White is a free man.

But his case is a stunning paradigm of how the legal system can be twisted. It is a chronicle of sex, fraud, conspiracy and redemption.

"Do you believe that Ted White molested his adopted daughter?" Quraishi asked.

"I don't," one juror said.

"Absolutely not," another juror answered.

The allegation first surfaced in 1998. White's then wife, Tina, called Lee's Summit police and accused him of molesting her 12-year-old daughter, whom White had adopted.

Sean O'Brien, a UMKC law professor working with the Midwest Innocence Project, got involved in the White case and defended him in during his second trial.

O'Brien said, "The real problem with a child abuse allegation is that they're almost self-proving. They're disturbing to adults. They kind of make you sick to your stomach to hear a child say this was done to me, and so there's an inherent credibility since it comes from an innocent child."

The first jury believed the allegations, but they never heard the whole story in court.

"So, we're trying to present our defense, and we don't have all the pieces of the puzzle," White said.

After a trial that lasted only three days, White was found guilty on all 13 counts.

Quraishi asked, "When you heard the verdict, the guilty verdict, what went through your mind?"

White said, "I was despondent. Your whole body goes numb. You can't think. You can't feel. I remember my parents and family crying in the courtroom, and I remember Tina laughing."

But White's despondency soon turned to desperation.

"I knew that I didn't do any of these things, and I needed more time to put the pieces of the puzzle together. And so, that's when I made a conscious decision to go to Costa Rica," White said.

He traveled around the country until he ran out of money. He took up work selling real estate until one day a client saw him on "America's Most Wanted."

"I was two below Osama bin Laden, and he turned me in," White said.

He was arrested and taken to a Costa Rican jail.

It was around this time that White became aware of new information that could get him a new trial.

"I agreed to waive extradition to come back and fight, even though I faced 250 years. I talked to my dad, and I said, 'Are you sure? … This is what you want me to do?' And he said, "I want you to come back and fight it."

That information was an illicit sexual relationship between White's now ex-wife Tina and Officer Richard McKinley, the Lee's Summit detective assigned to investigate White leading up to his first trial.

"I think the affair is the genesis of this case," White said.

O'Brien got involved in the White case and defended him in during his second trial.

"In fact, the key issue on the appeal was the fact that the detective was allowed to deny any contact with Tina White under oath," O'Brien said.

In fact, court documents show the prosecutor knew about the affair and was complicit in covering it up.

The court document reads, "The prosecutor said he would cough to signal to Richard when he needed to disclose the affair in response to a question." But when "Richard was asked if he had any personal interest in the case, during a deposition, and he stated he did not. The prosecutor did not signal him to say otherwise."

O'Brien said, "There was a cover-up. It was difficult to determine where did the cover up of the affair start and where did it stop, and where did the manipulation of the evidence in the underlying case begin?"

In 2000, McKinley and Tina White were married.

And even with evidence emerging of a cover-up, Ted White remained in prison until the appeals process could play itself out.

"I've got this rap sheet on me and I'm living in population in a level five and even murderers have children. So, you're not safe anywhere that you go with that type of charge against you," Ted White said.

While in prison awaiting a new trial, Ted White was brutally attacked on multiple occasions.

"He fractured the orbit of his eye and messed him up pretty bad," O'Brien said.

The second trial would prove devastating to the defense team and even members of the jury.

In total, 11 of the 12 jurors found Ted White not guilty. But one would not budge.

A different juror said that juror admitted reasonable doubt, but would not vote for acquittal.

"He just got back in the jury room and folded his arms and said, 'I'm not even going to discuss it with you anymore,'" O'Brien said.

The mistrial meant Ted White would remain in prison awaiting yet a third trial.

Some of the jurors were so outraged, they began a movement to free Ted White.

Dan Miller was the lead juror on trial three.

"As the defense brought out their witnesses and brought out their case, things took such a twist," Miller said. "We began to wonder who should really be on trial here."

The defense dissected the allegations one by one, uncovering that Tina White and McKinley had met long before the sexual abuse allegations had ever been made, revealing another possible motive - money.

Ted White held a major stake in a company that was about to go public. A provision in the deal spelled out that "...if White was ever convicted of a felony," "all of White's stock would be transferred to Tina."

So, when their divorce was finalized in 1999, Tina White was awarded all of his shares, then valued at approximately $600,000.

"Money can motivate anybody. Money can make people do terrible things. And from the person in Tina White that was brought out to us, I do believe it. Between her personality, the money, and the lifestyle she liked to live, I do believe it," Miller said.

According to court documents, "Tina's daughter underwent a physical examination … that "... showed no signs of the type of molestation that she claimed had occurred within the prior three weeks."

"I guess the worst part and what really scares me and for my family is the power of the word," Miller said. "It's that anybody can say anything about anybody else and it can be taken as fact and you can be behind bars without no real … factual evidence."

Finally, after spending five years in prison and enduring three bank-busting trials, the final verdict came in.

"I just cried. I had to stand there while they read 12 guiltys in the first trial, and when they read not guilty 12 times, it felt like we had righted a wrong that had been done," Ted White said.

But one thing that has not changed is McKinley's employment. To this day, he remains a Lee's Summit police officer.

In a statement to KCTV5 News, the city said: "the events involving Officer McKinley and Mr. White were investigated nearly a decade ago when the events took place, and actions were taken at that time." The statement goes on to say, "Our residents and employees alike should know and take heart in the fact that we do not base our employment decisions on allegations and private lawsuits but our own internal reviews."

While the city has not expressed regret over what happened to Ted White, early this month Robert Weeks, a Lee's Summit resident, offered up his own apology and some harsh words for the mayor and city council.

"Since no one in this government has the courage, conviction or integrity to apologize to Mr. Ted White for the great injustice done to him by this city. I will. I am sorry, Mr. White. I am appalled by what has happened to you. This is not who we are as a community," Weeks said.

White won a civil lawsuit for $16 million against the city of Lee's Summit and Richard and Tina McKinley.

The McKinleys did not respond to KCTV5's request for an interview. As for Ted White, he still faces a civil lawsuit filed against him by his adopted daughter.

He said enough is enough, and on Thursday White and his supporters intend to stage a protest outside the Lee's Summit City Hall.