A Bronx man who spent 25 years behind bars for a rape he didn’t commit was finally exonerated Tuesday – and says he’s now looking for love.
Rafael Ruiz, 60, cried tears of joy as his 1985 rape conviction was vacated and the indictment against him dismissed in a Manhattan courtroom packed with supporters donning shirts bearing a photo of him and the word “EXONERATED.”
“Good to be free … I feel nice and happy. My mind is back together again — slowly,” a beaming Ruiz told The Post outside the Manhattan Supreme Court.
“I am looking for a wife,” he added.
Ruiz was accused of a sex assault that happened in East Harlem in 1984. He was offered a plea deal with a 1.5-to-three-year prison sentence if he copped to the crime, but Ruiz instead maintained his innocence and was ordered to stand trial.
He was ultimately convicted and sentenced to 8 ⅓ to 25 years in prison — despite the fact that he did not match the description of the attacker, who the victim had said was an acquaintance of hers that she knew as “Ronnie,” according to the Innocence Project, a nonprofit, which later took on Ruiz’s case.
Ruiz served the full sentence — 25 years behind bars — before being released on parole in 2009.
“I was a man who went to court and went to trial to prove his innocence, but I was treated like I was already guilty when I stepped in there,” said Ruiz, who continued to fight to clear his name over the years.
He was finally exonerated based on evidence that was newly discovered during a joint investigation by the Innocence Project and Manhattan District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Program.
DNA testing of the victim’s sexual-assault kit “excluded Ruiz as the source of all the samples tested,” the Innocence Project said.
Seema Saifee, a senior staff lawyer with the Innocence Project, said, “Police conducted an inadequate investigation marked by unduly suggestive identification procedures.
“This led to the conviction of a young man with limited resources who bravely insisted he was innocent.”
Ruiz was joined by several family members and friends at the courthouse who were heard shouting, “Free at last!”
“We are going to go home, have a great dinner, go fishing and go dancing,” said Ruiz’s sister, Nancy Ruiz, 62. “We don’t need to hide anymore with glasses and big hats.”
Manhattan DA Cy Vance said in a statement, “A prosecutor’s job is not just to seek convictions, but to seek justice.
“Today, attorneys from my Office’s Conviction Integrity Program moved to vacate the 1985 conviction of Rafael Ruiz and to dismiss the indictment against him on the grounds of newly discovered DNA evidence.
“We were pleased to be joined in today’s motion by the Innocence Project and I’m grateful for their continued partnership. I’d also like to thank the prosecutors in our Conviction Integrity Program – the first on the East Coast –who work every day to review claims of innocence, and just as importantly, to improve prosecutorial practices on the front end and prevent wrongful convictions from happening in the first place.”
