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Wrongly Convicted Database Record
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Charge: |
False Police Report |
Sentence: |
3 days community service |
Years Imprisoned: |
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Year Crime: |
1997 |
Year Convicted: |
1997 |
Year Cleared: |
2004 |
U.S. State or Country of Crime: |
New York |
County or Region of Crime: |
Queens |
City of Crime: |
New York City |
Result: |
Judicially Exonerated |
Summary of Case: |
"Fancy Figueroa was a sophomore at Newtown High School in Queens, New York when on March 26, 1997 she was raped on her 16th birthday by a man who followed her home from school. Police condicted an investigation and a rape kit was collected at a local hospital, but when it was discovered she was pregnant the police investigators assumed she made up the rape story as an explanation for her pregnancy. Figueroa was charged with filing a false police report. She agreed to a plea deal that if she picked up trash for 3 days and didn't commit any crimes for six months her conviction of the misdemeanor of filing a false police report would be vacated and expunged from her record. Vincent Elias, who had been convicted raping two teenagers in Queens in 1999, was required in 2003 to provide a DNA sample. When his DNA profile was run through the New York State DNA database it matched the DNA profile of the semen collected from Figueroa in 1997. When confronted with the DNA evidence Elias confessed to raping Figueroa. In March 2004 Elias was sentenced to 22 years in prison after plrading guilty to raping Figueroa." |
Conviction Caused By: |
Filed a false police report. |
Innocence Proved By: |
in 2003 convicted rapist Vincent Elias' DNA profile was matched to the semen collected from Figueroa after she reported being raped in 1997. In March 2004 Elias was sentenced to 22 years in prison after plrading guilty to raping Figueroa. |
Defendant Aided By: |
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Compensation Awarded: |
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Was Perpetrator Identified? |
Yes |
Age When Imprisoned: |
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Age When Released: |
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Sex: |
Female |
Skin/Ethnicity: |
Hispanic |
Information Source 1: |
"7 Years Ago Today, He Brutalized Her. But As He Is Sentenced ...Fancy Forgives Rapist, By Scott Shifrel (Staff writer), New York Daily News, March 26, 2004" |
Information Location 1: |
http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/7-years-today-brutalized-sentenced-fancy-forgives-rapist-article-1.582578 |
Information Source 2: |
"Fancy Gets B'Day Wish -- Apology, By Scott Shifrel (Staff writer), New York Daily News, March 7, 2004" |
Information Location 2: |
http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/fancy-b-day-apology-article-1.623458 |
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Innocents Database Created and Maintained by Hans Sherrer innocents@forejustice.org