A Charlotte man whose conviction for armed robbery and kidnapping was overturned last year has filed a federal lawsuit against 13 police officers alleging they fabricated evidence and should have known there was no probable cause to prosecute him.

In the suit, Shawn Massey says he was wrongfully imprisoned for 12 years because of the officers' alleged misconduct. He is seeking $10 million in damages, according to a complaint filed in federal court Friday.

Rob Tufano, a spokesman for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, said the agency received a copy of the lawsuit late Friday afternoon and attorneys are reviewing the complaint.

Massey's attorney, David Rudolf, couldn't be reached for comment on Friday

Massey was arrested in 1998 and convicted a year later for crimes against a Charlotte woman and her two children. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison.

But the conviction was overturned in May 2010 at the request of former Mecklenburg District Attorney Peter Gilchrist.

Gilchrist said a prosecutor failed to disclose to defense attorneys that the victim had told a prosecutor before a court hearing that she doubted her identification of Massey.

After the hearing, though, the victim told the prosecutor told her she no longer had any doubt after seeing and hearing the suspect in court.

At the time, Gilchrist said he did not believe the prosecutor intentionally withheld the information. But he said believed a judge would have ordered a new trial and a jury would have found Massey not guilty.

The lawsuit against the police officers does not mention the prosecutor's action.

But the federal complaint alleges an officer filed a false report of the victim's identification of Massey in a photo lineup.

The victim, the suit alleges, picked Massey's photo as "looking the most like" her assailant.

But it says she told the officer the assailant had longer hair with braids and no beard. She made similar comments in court and also noted Massey weighed less than her attacker.

But the suit says the officer omitted the words "the most like" from his report on the photo lineup, which made it "false and misleading."

The victim's observations were uncovered by researchers from the Duke Law School, and its Wrongful Convictions Clinic and Innocence Project spent more than four years examining Massey's case.

The lawsuit also alleges that another officer falsely reported that a friend of Massey told police he was wearing his hair in braids at the time of the assault. The friend disputed the comments in court, according to the suit.

In seeking damages, Massey's lawsuit said he has sustained "personal physical injuries and sicknesses" since 1998, including inadequate medical care, severe mental anguish and emotional distress.