(CNN) — Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, the middleweight boxing contender who was wrongly convicted of a triple murder in New Jersey in the 1960s, has died in Toronto, according to Win Wahrer, the director of client services for the Association in Defense
of the Wrongly Convicted.
Carter, 76, died of complications from prostate cancer, Wahrer said.
He was profiled in the 1975 Bob Dylan song “Hurricane” and a film entitled “The Hurricane” starring Denzel Washington, who was nominated for an Academy Award.
Carter spent 19 years in prison before a federal judge ruled in 1985 that he and John Artis, who was with Carter on the night of the killings, did not receive fair trials and released them. Artis was with Carter when he died Sunday morning, Wahrer said.