DNA testing has exonerated a man who has served 12 years of a 40-year prison sentence. According to a spokesperson for the New York-based Innocence Project, which investigates wrongful convictions, the state attorney's office in Cook County, Illinois, has vacated the conviction of 41-year-old Dean Cage and has dismissed all charges against him stemming from the alleged rape of a teenage girl in 1994.
"I have my life back," Dean said during an interview with the Chicago Tribune. "It means the world to me. I never had a doubt. I am happy and blessed."
Dean's arrest and subsequent conviction came after the victim of an alleged rape identified him as her attacker.
According to court records, the victim, a 15-year-old girl, was walking to a school bus stop on the morning of November 14, 1994, when a man wearing a black leather jacket and hat grabbed her and pulled her into an alleyway. It was there, she later testified, that the man pushed her up against a wall and sexually assaulted her. Afterwards, the man fled on foot, and the girl notified police.
Using the girl's description of the attacker, police investigators created a computer-generated sketch of the suspect and circulated it throughout the neighborhood where the crime had occurred. Approximately one week later, police fielded a call from a tipster who told them that a man matching the description of the suspect was employed at a local meat-packing plant.
Armed with the tipster's information, police took the victim to Dean's place of work, and she positively identified him as her attacker. Police immediately arrested Dean, who claimed that he had been home at the time the crime was committed.
When the case went to trial in 1996, Dean was convicted as a result of the victim's misidentification and was sentenced to 40 years behind bars.
According to a press release on the Innocence Project's Web site, the organization had approached the Cook County State Attorney's office in late 2006 and asked them to order DNA testing on the rape kit and the victim's clothing. When those results came back this week, they positively ruled Dean out as a suspect in the case.
Dean was finally freed from prison late Tuesday night. Family members picked him up from the Illinois River Correctional Centre in Downstate Canton and took him to his mother's house in Chicago, where he was greeted by family members and treated to a welcome home party.
"If you believe in something, fight for it," Dean said at a press conference yesterday afternoon, adding, "The truth will come out in the end."
According to the Innocence Project's Web site, Dean Cage is the 29th person in Illinois and the 217th person in the nation to be exonerated by DNA evidence.
Visit the Innocence Project's Web site to read about the other 28 DNA exonerations in Illinois.