For Jack Cummings, who stared down the barrel of losing his own freedom to bogus charges 30 years ago, he couldn’t move on. He didn’t want to.

He referred to the notorious molestation ring cases from the mid-1980’s in which dozens of people were convicted for hundreds of years of the most gruesome child molestation charges.

In a very few of those cases, lawsuits yielded millions of dollars. Most defendants who sued got a pittance, or nothing at all.

Cummings and his wife, then Jackie Nokes, weren’t convicted.

In 1984, they packed up their three boys and fled. By the time they were picked up in Northern California, they’d had time to get the grand jury involved, hire investigators, take polygraphs and get their story out.

It set them back. As it did all the families.

Stoll got out after 20 years and eventually won a $5.5 million settlement from Kern County on top of a $700,000 settlement from the state.

“Most exonerees get nothing when they get out of prison,” Cummings said. Lawsuits can be costly and extremely time-consuming, and it’s difficult to find lawyers to take them on.

The group’s goal is to help people freed from prison get started in life with things like housing, jobs, medical care, education — the basics.

Caldwell was convicted in 1990 of murder. About three years ago, another inmate confessed to the crime and the San Francisco County District Attorney’s Office dismissed the case against Caldwell. Caldwell is now suing San Francisco.

“We’re working with exonerees all over the state,” explained Samis. “We don’t have any official partnerships, but we ­definitely seek out partners for everything from housing to counseling. Each of us is putting together different parts of the ­puzzle.”

Beyond Freedom works with the Innocence Project to vet exoneree cases.

Once they’re out, she said, any help with expenses, or just support, is extremely valuable.

In particular, Cummings is hoping to find a job and housing for Roeling Adams here in Bakersfield. Adams is currently in the Bay Area but is hoping to transfer here for better housing costs while he works and goes to school.

He confessed again in 2008 before the Board of Parole Hearings and a commissioner pushed to have the case against the Adamses reopened.

But Adams was initially denied release by the parole board because in his early years he’d been advised by an attorney not to claim he was innocent.

When the confession came to light, Adams came before the parole board again but was denied because he’d lied about being guilty in previous hearings.

Six months later, on Oct. 10, 2014, they let Adams out. But his conviction remains.

Like Caldwell, Adams praised Cummings and the Beyond Freedom program. He had nothing when he got out, not even an ID. Cummings bought his books for class and even paid for two of his field trips.

“I’d say, just Google ‘housing authority’ and he was like ‘What? Whoa, whoa, whoa!’ He missed a lot.”