Two men wrongfully imprisoned for a kidnapping and rape they didn’t commit were exonerated on Monday in Manhattan Supreme Court. Cumulatively, the men had served decades for a crime they didn’t commit.
VanDyke Perry and Gregory Counts were just 19 and 21, respectively, when they were charged with kidnapping a woman near her home in Queens and raping her. As the New York Times reports, Perry and Counts were convicted of the crime despite investigators having no physical evidence:
Semen recovered from the woman did not match the two accused men. The prosecution’s case relied heavily on her testimony, which was inconsistent. The defense argued the woman, a recovering crack addict, fabricated the story to protect her boyfriend, who had shot Mr. Perry two months earlier and was wanted by the police, court records show.
Twenty six years later, both men are finally free after two major revelations. First, a 2015 test revealed that DNA recovered from the woman matched the profile of a man who died in 2011. Then, the final blow: two weeks ago, the woman who accused Perry, Counts and a third man of rape recanted her story, admitting the rape “never happened.”
Source: 2 Men Wrongfully Imprisoned for Rape Exonerated After Accuser Recants Story
