VanDyke Perry and Gregory Counts were only 21 and 19 when the unthinkable happened to them. The two men were falsely accused of rape and spent 11 and 26 years behind bars for a crime they did not commit. The woman that claimed to have been the victim of a gang-rape by Perry and Counts was the girlfriend of their friend. She claimed that they pulled her into a vehicle by force and repeatedly raped her along with a third individual who was never arrested. The woman later admitted to have made up the allegations and confessed that the rape never occurred.
The most striking fact about this case is that there was practically no evidence to prove the guilt of the two men. The DNA, which was the semen found in the woman's underwear, did not match that of either Perry or Counts. In addition, the car that the rape allegedly happened in was never searched, and the only word against the two men was the woman's.
This case has many similarities to the "When They See Us" documentary we reviewed and analyzed in class. The two alleged rapes were supposedly committed by African American men. They both took place in Central Park and the innocent men were sentenced to time with very little evidence to prove their guilt. The two cases also resulted in the exoneration of the men after an extended period of time. The fact that both groups of men were African American cannot be neglected either. It is unfortunate that the racial issues cause so much pain to so many innocent black men.
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