"On Nov. 8, 1982, a young woman was riding her bicycle in Simi Valley when she was cornered by a man and sexually assaulted. A few months later, the 19-year-old was in a pizza parlor when she thought she recognized her assailant. She wrote down the man's license plate number and informed Simi Valley police. The owner of the vehicle, Richard Joseph Luna, then 26, was arrested on suspicion of rape."
"When they tested the evidence from the 1982 rape, the DNA did not match Luna; instead, it came back as a match to another man who had prior convictions for rape. When the DA's office learned of the miscarriage of justice, they filed a motion to have Luna's conviction overturned. On Thursday, a judge formally dismissed the case against Luna."
""There's no way I can imagine how it feels for you to be wrongly convicted... Justice wasn't served in 1984, but all I can say for what little it's worth is justice is being served today," the judge told Luna at Thursday's hearing, the Ventura County Star reported. Luna will be paid restitution for the prison time he unfairly served, the judge said. The man whose DNA was found on the rape kit cannot be charged because the statute of limitations has expired, the Star reported."
On Nov. 8, 1982 a woman riding a bicycle in Simi Valley was cornered and sexually assaulted. Months later she believed she recognized the assailant in a pizza parlor, recorded a license plate number, and reported it to Simi Valley police. Vehicle owner Richard Joseph Luna, age 26, was arrested, tried, and convicted of rape by force despite no physical evidence linking him. Luna received a six-year prison sentence and lifetime registration as a sex offender. Decades later Ventura County prosecutors tested the rape kit DNA, which excluded Luna and matched another man with prior rape convictions. A judge dismissed Luna's conviction and ordered restitution; the DNA match cannot be prosecuted due to the statute of limitations.
Read at SFGATE
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