Man Exonerated of Rape Charges After 16 Years In Prison

Unfortunately, Luis Vargas had already been in jail for 16 years before he was declared innocent, after new evidence emerged proving his innocence. At the time of his arrest, Vargas also had a prior forcible rape conviction and the two factors led police to believe Vargas was the perpetrator, Simpson said. He was expected to be exonerated on November 23, 2015, after spending 16 years in prison. A judge exonerated Vargas, convicted of three rapes, after DNA evi…

“I’ve believed in my father’s innocence the day he told me he was innocent”, Nunez-Vargas said after the brief hearing, becoming emotional and dabbing her eyes as she spoke with reporters.

However, Vargas is not a free man yet because of his immigration status.

Their attorneys assume immigration authorities will release him since he was a legal person at that time of charge as well as the issue of the confidence has become isolated.

The California Innocence Project at the California Western School of Law in San Diego noted in court documents that prosecutors argued at trial that the same suspect must have committed all of the attacks linked to Vargas.

Before that, Luis Vargas had been in prison for crimes he didn’t commit since 1999 and was serving a sentence of 55 years to life for three sexual assaults. Vargas has only one teardrop tattooed below his left eye, they said. Two of the women escaped unharmed, but one of them – who was 15-years-old at the time – was raped.

But following advances in forensic techniques, officers trawled through years of unsolved sexual assaults and rapes and this resulted in a DNA match that identified him. That man, who was never caught, is suspected of having committed about three dozen crimes in the LA area.

“Bad eyewitness identifications are one of the leading causes of wrongful convictions”, Professor Justin Brooks, director of the California Innocence Project, said in a statement.

Jurors disregarded Vargas’ alibi witnesses, including the manager of a bagel shop, who said he was working there the mornings of the attacks. The rapist was known for grabbing his victims and threatening them with a weapon before pulling them into a secluded area and raping them, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Prosecutors concluded it was a case of mistaken identity and that new evidence had undermined their case, Deputy District Attorney Nicole Flood said in a letter to the judge. “I can’t wait for that”. A judge formally dismissed his murder case in April.

Special Assistant District Attorney Michael Schwartz, who heads the county’s conviction integrity unit, declined to comment on the suit.

“I am awaiting him in the future home so I may do my large church wedding and become able to possess me go down the section, that will be every young girl’s desire”, she said.