Convicted Rapist in Recanted Testimony Case Leaves Prison

Convicted rapist Gary Dotson left prison Tuesday after serving six months for a parole violation, and his attorney said he deserves full clemency because high-tech tests prove his innocence.

Dotson had served six years in prison when Cathleen Crowell Webb, now a New Hampshire homemaker, said she had lied when testifying that Dotson raped her in 1977 when she was a suburban Chicago teen-ager.

Immediately after Dotson, 31, was released Tuesday from Logan Correctional Center in Lincoln, he enrolled in a residential alcohol rehabilitation program, said Nic Howell, a spokesman for the state Corrections Department.

Condition of Release

As a condition of his release, Dotson must spend several weeks living at the undisclosed center and several more weeks as an outpatient, Howell said.

Dotson left prison after serving a six-month term for his December parole violation of a “last-chance” release from prison offered by Gov. James R. Thompson, Howell said.

In the meantime, Dotson’s attorney, Tom Breen, has asked Thompson to grant full clemency for Dotson because he said the results of new, high-technology DNA tests of blood and semen prove Dotson’s innocence “beyond a doubt.”

“This is a case where a person was arrested, convicted and sentenced for a crime that never occurred,” Breen said.

Dotson was convicted in 1979 of rape and sentenced to 25 to 50 years in prison. He had served six years when Webb stepped forward and said she had concocted the story to cover up a sexual encounter with her boyfriend.

After public hearings, Thompson commuted Dotson’s sentence to time served in May, 1985, but rejected the convicted rapist’s request for clemency, saying he did not believe Webb’s recantation or Dotson’s denials.