Two New York men who were accused of rape and kidnapping in 1991 have been exonerated after the accuser recanted her story. Manhattan Supreme Court judge exonerated Van Dyke Perry and Gregory Counts.
The New York Times reported that the woman approached a patrol car in Harlem and alerted them that she was held captive by 3 men at knifepoint and subsequently raped. Two out of the three men were arrested and then charged with sodomy, kidnapping, and criminal possession of a weapon. There was no physical evidence of the woman’s claims nor did the semen collected match any of the two men.
According to VIBE, the prosecution also felt her testimony was dubious and hard to follow but the they insisted that she was in fact a victim of the crimes:
The prosecution leaned heavily on her inconsistent testimony. The defense however argued the woman was unreliable because she was a recovering crack addict and fabricated the story to protect her boyfriend who was wanted by police for shooting Perry two months prior.
Yet despite the shaky testimony and lack of evidence, both men were convicted. Perry served 11 years while Counts served 26. The third man accused was never arrested. Monday morning, both men walked into a Manhattan courtroom where district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr asked the State Supreme Court judge to vacate their convictions. Counts broke down in tears and said he forgives his accuser.
In April, the woman told investigators from the district attorney’s office as well as lawyers with the New York Innocence project the rape ” never happened.” The semen collected matched a man who died in 2011 but was found through the FBI database.
It’s safe to say that the convictions were racially driven as both men are black and lack the benefit of the doubt even when the evidence presented was not consistent with the woman’s claims. The woman’s identity has been kept private, but one must wonder will she be held accountable for putting innocent men in prison.