Mistaken Identity! Man exonerated of rape charges after 16 years in jail

Emotions overflowed in a Los Angeles courtroom as 46-year-old Luis Vargas, pronounced guilty of a rape 16 years ago, was exonerated of the charge.

A judge in Los Angeles dismissed the case after new DNA evidence linked the crime to a serial attacker on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.

The attacker is known for a tattoo of a teardrop under his eye, and has been linked to 11 other crimes.

But Vargas had already served 16 years in jail for some of those crimes.

Vargas was linked to the crime simply because he had a similar tattoo.

“Vargas placed his hand to his forehead and covered his eyes as Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William Ryan dismissed the case during a brief hearing packed with family and law school students who had worked to free him,” Dailymail reports.

In 1999, Vargas was convicted of kidnapping and raping one woman and attempting to rape two others between February and June 1998.

Convinced of his innocence, Vargas contacted lawyers and students for the innocence project at California Western School of Law who took up the case.

Thanks to improved technology, his lawyers successfully showed that genetic evidence from the forcible rape was linked to the Teardrop Rapist and not Vargas.

It was a case of mistaken identity and new evidence pointed ‘unerringly to innocence’, prosecutors told the judge.

Although the rape charges have been dismissed, Vargas is still being held in custody because of immigration issues.

Were he not exonerated, Vargas would have served out 55 years to life imprisonment.