Denise Lavoie
Associated Press
Apr. 4, 2003 12:00 AM
BOSTON - A man who spent 19 years in prison after three rape victims identified
him as their attacker was freed Thursday, cleared by new DNA tests on evidence
found by a law student working on his case.
"It's a big change," Dennis Maher said at the Boston office of his attorneys.
After prosecutors dropped charges against him before a packed courtroom, Maher also said he had a message for the women: "What happened to you really happened, and I hold no grudges against you."
Maher, 42, a former mechanic, said he blamed Lowell, Mass., police and his former attorney, now deceased.
His big break came in 2001, when the law student discovered two boxes of evidence, including the clothing of one of the victims, in the basement of the Cambridge courthouse.
Prosecutors agreed to have the clothing sent to California for DNA testing, and the results showed that Maher did not commit the rape. A slide from the rape kit of a second victim was immediately sent for testing, and those results also cleared Maher as the attacker.
On Thursday, prosecutors agreed to drop charges in all three cases against him.
District Attorney Martha Coakley said there was no indication of sloppy police work. All three women identified Maher as their attacker, and their description of clothing and a military knife matched items found in Maher's car.
Maher was represented by the Innocence Project, which provides legal assistance to inmates where DNA testing could establish proof of innocence. His current attorney, Aliza Kaplan, deputy director of the Innocence Project, said about 80 percent of the 126 convictions reversed by the group have involved mistaken eyewitness identifications.
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