D.A.’s office “no longer has confidence” in Luis Vargas’ sexual assault convictions

After DNA cleared Lu­is Lorenzo Var­gas, the L.A. County dis­trict at­tor­ney’s of­fice no­ti­fied the court that it “no longer has con­fid­ence” in his con­vic­tions for three 1998 sexu­al as­saults. At tri­al, a pro­sec­utor had ar­gued that all three at­tacks were so sim­il­ar that they must have been com­mit­ted by the same per­son. But DNA from one of the cases was tested last year and ex­on­er­ated Var­gas. The test im­plic­ated the so-called “teardrop rap­ist,” who is still wanted for more than three dozen sexu­al as­saults in the Los Angeles area.

Sources: California Innocence Project