Dotson, Cleared of Rape but Rejailed, to Be Freed

Gary Dotson, the convicted rapist drawn into the national spotlight in 1985 after his alleged victim recanted, will be freed from his latest jail stint in a “last-chance deal,” authorities said Wednesday.

Under the modified commutation order from Gov. James R. Thompson, Dotson will be released Saturday when he finishes serving a sentence for violating parole.

“If he (Thompson) had not done anything, Dotson faced the possibility of staying in prison until at least 2008, and the governor felt that was too stiff a sentence for a parole violation,” aide Jim Bray said. Violation of parole would send Dotson back to prison for the remainder of his rape sentence.

Terry Barnich, the governor’s chief legal counsel, called it “a last-chance deal.”

Dotson was sentenced in 1979 to 25 to 50 years in prison after his conviction on charges of raping Cathleen Crowell Webb.

Webb later came forward to say she fabricated the rape story as a teen-ager out of fear that she was pregnant by a boyfriend. Thompson then commuted the sentence to time served.

The Illinois Prisoner Review Board returned Dotson to prison on Sept. 5 for violating the terms of parole imposed after his conviction on drunken-driving charges earlier this year.

Dotson has been arrested five times on various charges, including speeding and other traffic violations, since his 1985 release. Battery charges filed Aug. 2 for hitting his wife were dropped, but the board considered the arrest in deciding to revoke his parole.

In the new order, signed Tuesday but not announced until Wednesday, Thompson extended Dotson’s parole three more years and ordered him to participate in an alcoholism treatment program approved by the review board.