MANASSAS, VA — A Virginia man sentenced to death for a 2001 murder-for-hire walked out of the Prince William County Jail on Monday, Sept. 28, 2026, after a judge vacated his capital murder conviction, ending a legal battle that stretched across 25 years and exposed a documented pattern of prosecutorial misconduct.
Justin Michael Wolfe, 45, was 19 years old when he was arrested in connection with the March 15, 2001, shooting death of Daniel Petrole in Bristow, Virginia. He was convicted in January 2002 and sentenced to death — a punishment he lived under for more than a decade. His release this week marks the conclusion of one of Virginia’s most contested criminal cases, one that drew scrutiny from federal judges, advocacy organizations, and the state’s own current prosecutors. Judge Carl Weimer vacated the murder conviction after the sole witness linking Wolfe to the crime recanted his trial testimony. Wolfe then accepted a plea deal on marijuana distribution and solicitation of robbery charges, receiving a sentence of time served.
Wolfe spent his first hours of freedom doing ordinary things. He ate pizza, ran errands with his mother, Terri Steinberg, and made plans for a family dinner. Speaking to reporters Tuesday afternoon, he reflected on the weight of what he had endured. “The thing I relish most is getting to know my nieces and nephews,” Wolfe said. “I did 25 years for a marijuana case, something that you can go buy at the store now. I feel like I handled it as well as I could.” Steinberg, who stood beside her son at the jail entrance shortly after his release, was less measured in her assessment of the justice system. “The system is broken,” she said. “What they did to him was cruel and unusual punishment, and what they did to the Petroles was just prolong their pain.”
The case that sent Wolfe to death row began as a suburban drug investigation in northern Virginia. Authorities estimated that Wolfe and a group of other teenagers had sold as much as $10 million worth of marijuana and the synthetic drug ecstasy before they were caught. The group used the proceeds to fund high-dollar vacations to Hawaii and Atlantic City while maintaining what investigators described as an otherwise ordinary suburban lifestyle. Prosecutors alleged that Wolfe, who owed his friend and drug supplier Daniel Petrole more than $60,000, hired a fellow dealer named Owen Barber to shoot and kill Petrole. After the shooting, Barber told a friend what he had done, and that friend alerted police, according to court records. Barber pleaded guilty as part of a deal to avoid the death penalty and was sentenced to 60 years in prison for the murder. A grand jury then indicted Wolfe on capital murder charges. He testified in his own defense at trial, denied any involvement in Petrole’s death, and was convicted anyway in January 2002. Barber was the only person who directly tied Wolfe to the alleged murder-for-hire scheme.
The foundation of Wolfe’s conviction began to crack when Barber later recanted his trial testimony. Barber said Wolfe had no involvement in Petrole’s death and claimed that law enforcement officers had repeatedly threatened him with the death penalty unless he agreed to testify against Wolfe during prosecution. Legal advocacy groups took up Wolfe’s cause, including the U.S. Campaign to End the Death Penalty and the Innocence Project at the University of Virginia School of Law. Progress was slow. A federal judge eventually determined that prosecutors had engaged in misconduct and vacated Wolfe’s death sentence, ordering a new trial. But Barber refused to testify on Wolfe’s behalf at that point, fearing that doing so would violate the terms of his own plea agreement and potentially expose him to a new death penalty trial. After additional legal proceedings, Wolfe was resentenced in 2016 to up to 41 years in prison under a new plea deal designed to spare him from another potential death sentence. That agreement also required him to apologize directly to Petrole’s family. “I understand all the pain and suffering I caused,” Wolfe said at his 2016 sentencing, facing the Petrole family. “I know an apology is not enough, but I’m sorry.”
Virginia’s abolition of the death penalty in 2021 changed the legal calculus for Barber. No longer facing the possibility of capital punishment, Barber signed a new sworn statement in 2023 declaring that Wolfe had nothing to do with Petrole’s death. Two additional individuals also submitted sworn statements confirming that Barber had privately told each of them, at separate times, that Wolfe was not involved in the killing. Those statements fueled a new round of appeals. Last year, a unanimous three-judge panel of federal appellate judges agreed that Wolfe had been the victim of prosecutorial misconduct. U.S. Circuit Judge Stephanie Thacker, writing for the panel, delivered a pointed rebuke of the original prosecution. “Twenty-four years ago, the Commonwealth decided that appellant was a guilty man,” Judge Thacker wrote. “From that moment, the Commonwealth has done everything in its power to ensure Appellant dies in prison, eschewing the Constitution, ethical strictures, and Appellant’s own repeated and consistent assertions of actual innocence.”
Wolfe’s release was structured through a new plea agreement. He pleaded guilty to selling marijuana and entered what is known as an Alford plea to solicitation of robbery. An Alford plea allows a defendant to accept a guilty plea while maintaining their innocence — acknowledging that the prosecution likely has sufficient evidence to convict, without admitting to the act itself. The sentence under the agreement was time served. Prince William County Commonwealth’s Attorney Amy Ashworth, whose office inherited the case from a prior administration, issued a statement Monday calling the resolution a “just and appropriate outcome.” Ashworth acknowledged that the case had been mishandled before her tenure. “We recognize that people will have strong and differing views about this resolution,” Ashworth said, noting that some would view the plea as confirmation of guilt while others would see it as confirmation of innocence. Petrole’s family also released a statement through the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office. They asked for privacy and expressed hope that the resolution would allow them to move forward. “We can finally begin to close this chapter and remember Danny for life rather than for the circumstances of his death,” the family said.
Adjusting to life outside prison after a quarter century is presenting its own challenges for Wolfe. Choices that most people take for granted — deciding when to sleep, bathing without a correctional officer escort — are new experiences for a man who entered the system as a teenager and is leaving it at 45. A trip to a Costco warehouse store with his family quickly became overwhelming. “We just went to Costco, and that was sensory overload,” Wolfe said with a laugh. “I’m going to get the hang of it. I’ll be alright.” His mother said the family is focused on healing together. Wolfe said he hopes to eventually channel his experience into advocacy work on criminal justice reform, a goal shaped by the decades he spent fighting a system that, according to federal judges, worked against him at nearly every turn.
As of Tuesday, Wolfe remained free under the terms of his plea agreement, with no additional sentencing or hearings scheduled. The case leaves unresolved questions about accountability for the prosecutors whose conduct federal judges found to violate constitutional and ethical standards. Petrole’s family, meanwhile, asked the public to respect their privacy as they begin what they described as a long-overdue process of remembering their son and brother on his own terms.
