(Canoe) LOS ANGELES — A man who spent nearly 30 years in prison for kidnapping, robbery and rape has been declared innocent and freed, Los Angeles County prosecutors announced Tuesday.
DNA testing helped exonerate Gerardo Cabanillas in a 1995 attack on a couple sitting in a parked car in the city of South Gate, the county district attorney’s office said in a statement.
Cabanillas’ case was reexamined by the Conviction Integrity Unit of the DA’s office, and last week a judge reversed his conviction, found him factually innocent and ordered his permanent release.
“I extend my deepest apologies to Mr. Cabanillas for the miscarriage of justice and the failure of our criminal legal system,” District Attorney George Gascon said in a statement.
Cabanillas was convicted in 1996 and spent 28 years in prison. He confessed to being one of two armed men who approached the couple, forced the man out and drove the woman to an abandoned house where both raped her.
