DNA clears man jailed 16 years; meanwhile, 'Teardrop Rapist' committed more crimes
Convicted of three California sexual assaults, Luis Lorenzo Vargas argued at his 1999 sentencing that the real perpetrator was still out there.
“That individual that really did these crimes might really be raping someone out there,” he told a Los Angeles County judge, according to a court transcript. The judge sentenced Vargas to 55 years to life.
But prosecutors now agree that Vargas may have been right: A recent DNA test, using technology that wasn’t available at the time of his conviction, excluded Vargas from at least one of the crimes, which the government said had been committed by the same individual. And it pointed to the so-called Teardrop Rapist as the suspect, a man who is claimed by authorities to have committed 35 sex crimes over a 15-year period, reports the Los Angeles Times (sub. req.).
A Los Angeles Superior court judge is expected to grant a joint prosecution and defense motion for the release of Vargas on Monday. The district attorney’s office says it “no longer has confidence in the convictions,” the newspaper reports.
Meanwhile, the so-called Teardrop Rapist remains at large. A Los Angeles police department Facebook page said earlier this year that there are no fresh leads and sought the public’s help in identifying the suspect. The total number of sex crimes now linked to him is 39, according to the post.
Eyewitness testimony helped convict Vargas of the three sex crimes, despite testimony from work colleagues that he was on the job at the time and could not have committed them, the LA Times reports.
Two victims had told authorities their attacker had two teardrops tattooed beneath his left eye, prosecutors noted. Vargas has one teardrop tattoo below his left eye.
