| Habib Wahir Abdal | Incident Date: 12/31/69 Jurisdiction: NY Charge: Rape Conviction: Rape Sentence: 20-Life |
Year of Conviction: 1983 Exoneration Year: 1999 Sentence Served: 16 Years Real perpetrator found? Not Yet Contributing Causes: Eyewitness Misidentification, Government Misconduct Compensation? Yes |
Habib Wahir Abdal, then known as Vincent Jenkins, was convicted of rape in 1983. The conviction stemmed from a crime that occurred in Buffalo, New York, in May 1982. A young white woman was raped in a nature preserve after she had been separated from her husband. The initial description of the assailant was a black man with a hooded jacket. The assailant had blindfolded her.
Abdal was picked up over four months later and identified by the victim in a show up procedure. Though she had been informed by police that Abdal was the suspect, she failed initially to identify him as her assailant. The victim then viewed a photo of Abdal that was four years old. She returned to the show up and eventually identified him as the perpetrator.
Forensic comparison of the hairs that were collected pointed to a black man other than Abdal. He also did not match the initial description of the attacker. Still, the jury convicted him and he was sentenced to twenty years. Abdal's attorney, Eleanor Jackson Piel, continued to work on his case. She eventually contacted the Innocence Project. Piel's postconviction efforts to secure the physical evidence for DNA testing were successful in 1993, but the tests were deemed inconclusive.
Years later, as DNA testing became more sophisticated and discerning, Abdal's evidence was again submitted for testing. This time, the results revealed that there were two contributors of spermatozoa, in keeping with the victim's claim of prior consensual sex with her husband. Neither of the profiles belonged to Abdal, and neither belonged to the victim's husband.
Though the results exculpated Abdal, prosecutors fought his exoneration, claiming there may have been more rapists or that Abdal participated in the rape without ejaculating. These theories contradict the victim's statements to police that there was a singular rapist who ejaculated inside of her, as well as the prosecution's own theory of the crime at trial.
Abdal, after spending seventeen years in prison for a crime he did not commit, was finally released in September 1999.
Abdal was picked up over four months later and identified by the victim in a show up procedure. Though she had been informed by police that Abdal was the suspect, she failed initially to identify him as her assailant. The victim then viewed a photo of Abdal that was four years old. She returned to the show up and eventually identified him as the perpetrator.
Forensic comparison of the hairs that were collected pointed to a black man other than Abdal. He also did not match the initial description of the attacker. Still, the jury convicted him and he was sentenced to twenty years. Abdal's attorney, Eleanor Jackson Piel, continued to work on his case. She eventually contacted the Innocence Project. Piel's postconviction efforts to secure the physical evidence for DNA testing were successful in 1993, but the tests were deemed inconclusive.
Years later, as DNA testing became more sophisticated and discerning, Abdal's evidence was again submitted for testing. This time, the results revealed that there were two contributors of spermatozoa, in keeping with the victim's claim of prior consensual sex with her husband. Neither of the profiles belonged to Abdal, and neither belonged to the victim's husband.
Though the results exculpated Abdal, prosecutors fought his exoneration, claiming there may have been more rapists or that Abdal participated in the rape without ejaculating. These theories contradict the victim's statements to police that there was a singular rapist who ejaculated inside of her, as well as the prosecution's own theory of the crime at trial.
Abdal, after spending seventeen years in prison for a crime he did not commit, was finally released in September 1999.
| Habib Wahir Abdal | Incident Date: 12/31/69 Jurisdiction: NY Charge: Rape Conviction: Rape Sentence: 20-Life |
Year of Conviction: 1983 Exoneration Year: 1999 Sentence Served: 16 Years Real perpetrator found? Not Yet Contributing Causes: Eyewitness Misidentification, Government Misconduct Compensation? Yes |