Richard Jewels

Despite never being charged, he underwent a "trial by media", which took a toll on his personal and professional life. Jewell was eventually exonerated, and Eric Rudolph was later found to have been the bomber. In 2006, Governor Sonny Perdue publicly thanked Jewell on behalf of the State of Georgia for saving the lives of people at the Olympics. Jewell died on August 29, 2007, at age 44 due to heart failure from complications of diabetes.

The newspaper was the only defendant that did not settle with Jewell. The lawsuit remained pending for several years, having been considered at one time by the Supreme Court of Georgia, and had become an important part of case law regarding whether journalists could be forced to reveal their sources. Jewell's estate continued to press the case even after his death in 2007, but in July 2011 the Georgia Court of Appeals ruled for the defendant. The Court concluded that "because the articles in their entirety were substantially true at the time they were published—even though the investigators' suspicions were ultimately deemed unfounded—they cannot form the basis of a defamation action."

Jewell died on August 29, 2007, at the age of 44. He was suffering from serious medical problems that were related to his diabetes.

In 2006, Jewell said the lawsuits were not about money, and that the vast majority of the settlements went to lawyers or taxes. He said the lawsuits were about clearing his name.

On April 13, 2005, Jewell was exonerated completely when Eric Rudolph, as part of a plea deal, pled guilty to carrying out the bombing attack at Centennial Olympic Park, as well as three other attacks across the southern U.S. Just over a year later, Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue honored Jewell for his rescue efforts during the attack.

In 2001, Jewell was honored as the Grand Marshal of Carmel, Indiana's Independence Day Parade. Jewell was chosen in keeping with the parade's theme of "Unsung Heroes".

On July 23, 1997, Jewell sued the New York Post for $15 million in damages, contending that the paper portrayed him in articles, photographs and an editorial cartoon as an "aberrant" person with a "bizarre employment history" who was probably guilty of the bombing. He eventually settled with the newspaper for an undisclosed amount.

In July 1997, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, prompted by a reporter's question at her weekly news conference, expressed regret over the FBI's leak to the news media that led to the widespread presumption of his guilt, and apologized outright, saying, "I'm very sorry it happened. I think we owe him an apology. I regret the leak."

The same year, Jewell made public appearances. He appeared in Michael Moore's 1997 film, The Big One. He had a cameo in the September 27, 1997 episode of Saturday Night Live, in which he jokingly fended off suggestions that he was responsible for the deaths of Mother Teresa and Princess Diana.

Centennial Olympic Park was designed as the "town square" of the Olympics, and thousands of spectators had gathered for a late concert and merrymaking. Sometime after midnight, July 27, 1996, Eric Robert Rudolph, a terrorist who would later bomb a lesbian nightclub and two abortion clinics, planted a green backpack containing a fragmentation-laden pipe bomb under a bench. Jewell was working as a security guard for the event. He discovered the bag and alerted Georgia Bureau of Investigation officers. This discovery was nine minutes before Rudolph called 9-1-1 to deliver a warning. During a Jack Mack and the Heart Attack performance, Jewell and other security guards began clearing the immediate area so that a bomb squad could investigate the suspicious package. The bomb exploded 13 minutes later, killing Alice Hawthorne and injuring over one hundred others. A cameraman also died of a heart attack while running to cover the incident.

On October 26, 1996, the investigating US Attorney, Kent Alexander, in an extremely unusual act, sent Jewell a letter formally clearing him, stating "based on the evidence developed to date ... Richard Jewell is not considered a target of the federal criminal investigation into the bombing on July 27, 1996, at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta".

Richard Allensworth Jewell (born Richard White; December 17, 1962 – August 29, 2007) was an American security guard and police officer famous for his role in the events surrounding the Centennial Olympic Park bombing at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. While working as a security guard for AT&T, in connection with the Olympics, he discovered a backpack containing three pipe bombs on the park grounds. Jewell alerted police and helped evacuate the area before the bomb exploded, saving many people from injury or death. Initially hailed by the media as a hero, Jewell was later considered a suspect, before ultimately being cleared.