Lies Brought Man 6 Years in Prison : ‘Victim’ Apologizes to ‘Rapist’s’ Mother

A 23-year-old woman, tears running down her face, apologized today to the mother of a man sent to prison after she falsely accused him of rape, and she said she would give “anything I have” if she could make amends for his six years behind bars.

“I’m so sorry for what I did to you and your family, especially to Gary,” Cathy Crowell told Gary Dotson’s mother, Barbara, as the two women sat in separate studios for interviews on NBC’s “Today” show.

“I took six years away from him, and I really want your forgiveness, especially Gary’s forgiveness.”

The testimony of Crowell, now a New Hampshire housewife and mother of two, was pivotal to the case against Dotson, 28, who has been in prison since his 1979 conviction on charges of rape and aggravated kidnaping.

In an affidavit filed this week, she said that when she was 16 and living in suburban Homewood, she had sex with a teen-age boy, “thought I was pregnant and therefore decided to claim I was raped.”

She said she had no intention of having anyone arrested and made up a fictitious description of a suspect--one that so resembled Dotson that police arrested him.

On Wednesday, Circuit Court Judge Richard L. Samuels agreed to reconsider Dotson’s case at an April 4 hearing. If his conviction is reversed, Dotson could be freed the next day.

Crowell said in a telephone interview Thursday that her accusation was “despicable” and that she recanted it because of “turmoil in my heart. God kept bringing this back to my mind, convicting me about what I had done,” she said.

Dotson told a news conference at the Joliet Correction Center that he was not angry at his former accuser.

“I just want to thank her for showing that some people’s consciences do bother them about things they’ve done in the past,” he said after the judge’s decision.