A Black man who was wrongly convicted of rape nearly five decades ago was exonerated on his 72nd birthday.
Leonard Mack, now 72, had been trying to clear his name since he was convicted in 1975.
“For 48 long years, I walked about society being labeled a rapist when I know I didn’t do it,” Mack said.
Police previously said Mack, a Vietnam War veteran, matched the description of a man who tied up two high school students at gunpoint and raped one of them in Greenburgh, New York. Mack was arrested, charged with rape, and spent more than seven years in prison.
“Walking around prison yards, knowing that all the time I was innocent. But I never gave up hope. I kept the faith,” Mack told FOX 5 New York.
Mack attempted to prove his innocence through appeals and the Innocence Project, an organization that took his case and brought it to Westchester District Attorney Miriam Rocah.
The war veteran was cleared through DNA evidence that didn’t exist at the time of his conviction. Another man was matched to the crime and confessed.
On Tuesday (September 5), Rocah apologized for Mack’s wrongful conviction, saying the justice system failed him, the rape victims, and the community.
“The criminal justice system, including the DA’s office, failed him. Failed to protect an innocent man,” Rocah said.
According to the Innocence Project, Mack’s wrongful conviction is the oldest in U.S. history to be overturned by new DNA evidence.
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