TAMPA, Fla. – Alan Crotzer stepped into the sunlight outside the courthouse Monday and raised his arms to the sky, celebrating his freedom after more than 24 years behind bars for crimes he didn’t commit.
Circuit Judge J. Rogers Padgett freed the 45-year-old Crotzer after DNA testing and other evidence convinced prosecutors he was not involved in the 1981 armed robbery and rapes that led to his 130-year prison sentence.
“It’s been a long time coming,” Crotzer said. “Thank God for this day.”
Crotzer walked free more than three years after he wrote to the Innocence Project in New York, a legal clinic that seeks to exonerate inmates through DNA testing.
DNA has been used to clear at least 172 people wrongly convicted of crimes in 31 states since 1989, according to the Innocence Project.
Crotzer and brothers Douglas James and Corlenzo James were convicted of robbing a Tampa family in 1981. Douglas James and Crotzer were also found guilty of kidnapping and raping a 38-year-old woman and her 12-year-old daughter at gunpoint.
A victim picked Crotzer out of a photo lineup. But Douglas James said Crotzer was innocent. He said he and his brother were the rapists and a childhood friend was their accomplice.
Crotzer said he will live with a sister in St. Petersburg and try to find work. His attorneys said they will seek compensation from the state for him.
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