DNA review sought for convicted rapist

State Rep. Ellen Story, D-Amherst, is asking DNA experts nationwide to weigh in on the case of convicted rapist Benjamín LaGuer, believing that the justice system failed him more than 20 years ago.

LaGuer, 42, formerly of Leominster and now an inmate of the Souza-Baranowski Correction Center in Shirley - was convicted in 1984 by an all-white jury of rape and sentenced to life. LaGuer is hispanic.

"My colleagues and I have requested information about this case from the Massachusetts State Police and the Worcester District Attorney's office," Story's letter to more than 30 DNA experts reads in part. "Most of these requests have gone unanswered. Today, new reports and evidence have heightened legislative interest. If the claims raised by these records are true, a determination we hope you can help make, we may be facing a gross injustice and judicial scandal."

On July 15, LaGuer will have spent 22 years in prison for a crime he maintains he did not commit.

"For me," said Story in a separate interview, "he is a symbol of other young men, mostly of color, who are languishing in jail for crimes they may not have committed."

Last year, Story co-sponsored a bill that enables freed men and women wrongly incarcerated to sue the state for up to $500,000 in damages. Since the bill became law in January, six men have sued the state.

Story joins other lawmakers from the state as well as high profilers such as former Boston University President John Silber, who in 2003 told the Parole Board, "It is outrageous that a clear determination of Mr. LaGuer's guilt or innocence has been clouded - not by Mr. LaGuer but by the irregularities and improprieties of the prosecution."

Worcester District Attorney John J. Conte has maintained that the conviction won by his office was based on the truth.

LaGuer's lawyer, James Rehnquist, son of Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, is challenging that claim in court. The next phase of LaGuer's appeals process will take place in late July.

For years, LaGuer had been seeking a DNA test to clear his name. However, when he finally was tested, the DNA matched evidence in police custody. One of the arguments in his appeal is his contention that the evidence was planted by the police.

Attorney Barry C. Scheck, co-founder of The Innocence Project, which works to exonerate innocent convicts with DNA evidence, helped LaGuer's attorneys get the tests. At the time, he said the results were disappointing, "but no great setback for anybody."

For every case in which DNA evidence frees a person behind bars, another's test is inconclusive or cements the person's guilt, he said.

"I've seen so many of these cases that you just can't predict it. All I know is that we have this technology that can be depositive," Scheck said. "People turn out to be innocent in many cases."

Two years ago when LaGuer appeared before the Parole Board, he refused to confess to the crime even though he would have been freed had he done so. Instead, he again said he was an innocent man. He was returned to prison.