Innocence Project: DNA exonerates man in ‘76 rape conviction
DNA evidence has exonerated a Rochester man who more than three decades ago was convicted for a rape he didn’t commit.
State Supreme Court Justice David Egan today vacated the 1976 conviction of Frederick “Freddie” Peacock, who was convicted of raping a neighbor.
Peacock, now 60, was paroled from prison in 1982. However, he continued to insist he was innocent and, in 2002, attracted the Innocence Project to the case, according to Innocence Project spokesman Eric Ferrero.
Peacock “fought with more spirit than anybody we’ve seen to clear that cloud (of guilt),” said Innocence Project attorney Olga Akselrod.
The Innocence Project, based in New York City, uses genetic testing to try to free the wrongly convicted. Peacock is the 250th person exonerated by DNA evidence after conviction, Ferrero said.
There have been other cases in which individuals were exonerated after being freed from prison, but none with a time span as long as this case, Ferrero said.
“Not even close,” he said.
The District Attorney’s Office cooperated with the Innocence Project to determine whether Peacock was innocent. Prosecutors joined the Innocence Project in the request to dismiss the conviction.
District Attorney Michael Green said Peacock’s continued insistence of innocence helped persuade his office to agree with testing. “You had someone who maintained their innocence and you had a sample that was available to test,” he said.
“I look at this as doing our job, every bit as well or every bit as importantly as getting a conviction in a big murder case,” Green said.
Kelly Wolford, who heads the District Attorney’s appeals bureau, helped locate evidence from the crime for testing, Akselrod said. Local lawyer Donald Thompson also represented Peacock in his bid for exoneration.
Peacock was convicted of raping a 24-year-old woman in a parking lot near his Troup Street home in July 1976. The woman was returning to her home around 2:30 a.m. when she was grabbed from behind, dragged into bushes and raped.
The victim knew Peacock as a neighbor and identified him as the rapist. According to the Innocence Project, her testimony was unclear about how she recognized Peacock.
Authorities have not determined who raped the woman. Ferrero said the victim dated a man in 1976, but he has been deported and could not be located. However, the Innocence Project located his mother in Florida and she agreed to provide a DNA sample.
That sample ruled out any links between the boyfriend and genetic evidence from the crime.
At a news conference after his conviction was vacated today, Peacock sat with his head bowed and did not answer questions. He suffers from serious mental illness.
“It had been hanging over his head for a long long time,” his sister, Edith Leonard, said about the conviction. “He talked about it. He never gave up.”
In 2006 another Rochester man, Douglas Warney, was freed after DNA testing proved he did not commit a 1996 Rochester murder.
Warney was freed and the real killer, who was in prison for another slaying, confessed to the crime.
As with Warney’s case, the evidence against Peacock appears to center on a false confession.
Peacock told officers that he had been released from a psychiatric institution and had not taken prescribed medications, Neufeld said. He gave the officers no details or specifics about the crime, Neufeld said.
GCRAIG@DemocratandChronicle.com
