VanDyke Perry and Gregory Counts of New York City were exonerated Monday, May 7 after being arrested when they were only 19 and 21 years old, respectively, for kidnapping and raping a woman near Queens in 1991.

For decades, the two sat behind bars for a crime they knew they didn't commit. The New York Times reported that the woman at the center of the case told investigators from the district attorney’s office and the Innocence Project in April that the rape “never happened.”

On Jan. 18, 1991, the unidentified woman ran to a police squad car in the early hours of the morning, telling officers that she was held at knifepoint and raped by three black men. She recently admitted there was no rape when DNA testing connected the semen found on her body to another man through an F.B.I. database.

“This wrongful conviction destroyed my life,” said Perry, who was wrongfully imprisoned for 11 years. “But I never gave up my fight.”

Counts served 26 years. Through a joint effort between the Manhattan district attorney’s Conviction Integrity Program, the Innocence Project and the Office of the Appellate Defender’s Reinvestigation Project, the men were found innocent after a 2017 investigation. Counts reached out to the Innocence Project in 2012 and has been involved with the case since.

The two men were in contact with the district attorney’s office and requested physical evidence to prove their innocence and in 2015, their prayers were answered. DNA samples were re-tested, revealing the bodily fluids were from another man who was about 40 years old in 1991 and died in 2011, according to court records.

When the woman was interviewed again in 2016, she claimed she didn't recognize the picture of her alleged attacker. It wasn't until last month, when investigators returned to the woman, that she revealed that her boyfriend in 1991 told her to make up the story about the rape. She fabricated the story to protect her boyfriend, NBC New York reports.

“I can’t be angry,” Counts said of his accuser, who remains unnamed. “If I waste a minute being angry it’s a waste of time. That’s a minute I could have been happy.”

VanDyke Perry

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