Hartford (AP) _ A man U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut helped to free from Florida's death row more than 25 years ago has been charged in a different case with killing his wife in North Carolina.

Blumenthal was working at a private law practice in Connecticut when he agreed to take on the appeals case of Joseph Green Brown as a volunteer for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Brown's Florida conviction on rape and murder charges was reversed in 1986 because of false testimony from a co-defendant.

The biography on Blumenthal's Senate website says he saved the life of "an innocent, wrongly convicted death row inmate who came within hours of execution."

Blumenthal declined to comment Sunday.

The 62-year-old Brown was in a North Carolina court for a hearing Monday.