Cleared at last
’91 rape raps that ‘destroyed lives’ of 2 men are KOd
TWO MEN who served significant prison time after being falsely accused of rape in 1991 were exonerated on the recommendation of prosecutors Monday.
Gregory Counts and VanDyke Perry, who were 19 and 21 when they were charged, appeared in Manhattan Supreme Court for an emotional proceeding that brought them the vindication they had been seeking for decades.
Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. personally recommended their verdicts be tossed after DNA testing results showed they were not connected to the crime.
Their other break came last month, when the accuser admitted it was all a lie, the borough’s top prosecutor said.
“These two men were convicted of kidnapping, rape and sodomy because of the testimony of a complainant who recanted her accusations just two weeks ago,” Vance said.
The accuser, who was 23 at the time, said Counts, Perry and a third man abducted her, drove her to Central Park and took turns sexually assaulting her in an attempt to force her to give up where her boyfriend was staying.
When she recanted, she told investigators that her boyfriend told her to make up the story because he owed them drug money and that “their problems would go away” if she did, court papers say.
Vance said the statute of limitations has passed so the woman cannot be charged for making up the story.
Counts, 47, who served 27 years and was released on parole in August, told the packed courtroom that there were many innocent men like him in prison.
“I know it, because I’m a victim. I know there’s guys out there that are sitting there for a murder they didn’t do,” he said before the dismissal.
He pleaded with the DA to look at other innocence claims.
Perry, 48, who served 12 years, was slapped with a probation sentence for refusing to register as a sex offender when he got out of prison.
“I didn’t want to register for something I didn’t do,” he said. “This wrongful conviction destroyed my life.”