Man serving life for 1987 sexual assault gets new trial
DNA retesting disproves old FBI testimony
A judge has ordered a new trial for a Wisconsin Rapids man serving a virtual life sentence for a 1987 sexual assault he has always denied.
Richard Beranek, 58, raised new issues with the help of the Wisconsin Innocence Project, and gained extra attention because one of his lawyers, Jarrett Adams, went to law school after he himself was freed from a wrongful conviction with help from the same program. Adams now works for the Innocence Project in New York.
Reserve Judge Daniel Moeser presided at Beranek’s original trial, and heard defense arguments earlier this year about why an FBI agent likely overstated the scientific probability that hair recovered from the scene matched Beranek’s.
Furthermore, new DNA testing has shown that the hair “match” is conclusively not Beranek’s.
In an order issued Friday, Moeser vacated Beranek’s convictions and ordered a new trial. Beranek will get a hearing soon on bail that could free him from prison while awaiting the new trial — if the state even decides to go forward with one, given the age of the case.
The Wisconsin State Journal reported that Moeser’s decision concluded that, “if one respects the rule of law, as this court does, the goal of finality must give way to the goal of making as sure as reasonably possible that a conviction and its consequences are correct and appropriate under the facts of this case.”
A Stoughton woman said she had been attacked in her home in March 1987.
For nearly two years, detectives brought her photo arrays of possible suspects without luck.
Meanwhile, Beranek had been arrested and convicted in 1989 of a sexual assault in Chippewa County.
Police there thought he resembled a composite drawing of the suspect from the Stoughton case. The victim there identified Beranek from a photo as most likely her attacker.
The FBI agent’s testimony at trial likely helped overcome six alibi witnesses who said Beranek was in North Dakota at the time of the assault.
Beranek was sentenced to more than 200 years in prison.