NEW YORK-
A man who spent 21 years behind bars for the rape of a police officer’s wife was freed Friday after being cleared by DNA testing.
Scott Fappiano, 44, was released at a Brooklyn court hearing just one day after test results showed that his DNA did not match that at the crime scene.
A judge ordered his release after the district attorney’s office agreed to a request by attorneys for the Innocence Project, which uses DNA to exonerate convicts.
Fappiano’s mother, Rose, was ecstatic. “My son was kidnapped from me 21 years ago,” she said. “I want to welcome him home.”
The case dated to 1983, when an intruder broke into the Brooklyn home of a police officer as he and his wife were sleeping. The assailant restrained the husband and raped the wife.
Fappiano was arrested and first tried in 1984, despite blood-typing tests that failed to link him to cigarettes and stained clothing left at the crime scene. The main evidence against Fappiano was an identification by the rape victim, although he was five inches shorter than the 5-foot-10 attacker first described by the woman.
The police officer, after viewing the same lineup, did not select Fappiano.
His first trial ended in a hung jury, with the panel voting 11-1 in his favor. He was convicted in a retrial a year later, and sentenced to 20 to 50 years.
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