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SAN DIEGO - Even though he spent the past eight years in prison, wrongly convicted of kidnapping and raping a teenager in Lemon Grove, Uriah Courtney is considered among the lucky ones. Lucky, because his case caught the attention of the California Innocence Project. Lucky, because evidence in the sexual assault still existed to be retested for DNA. And lucky, because he is one of the few to actually have his conviction overturned, said California Western School of Law professor Justin Brooks, who oversees the Innocence Project. Courtney, 33, was released from Donovan State Prison on May 6 after new tests showed DNA from the victim's clothing matched another felon who lived in the area of the attack.

Uriah Courtney could not hold back the tears. After spending eight years in state prison for something he did not do, he was a free man. "When I got out, I felt I could fly," he said. Courtney, along with his mother, father and sister, spoke about his ordeal in front of a throng of cameras at the California Western School of Law, whose students along with the California Innocence Project worked to exonerate him. "I can't believe this day is here," said Courtney's mother, Mary Gambino. Courtney was convicted for the rape and assault of a 16-year-old girl in Lemon Grove in 2004. Eyewitnesses placed his truck or a truck that looked like his at the scene. That plus eyewitness testimony sealed his conviction. New DNA testing, however, pointed to a man who closely resembled Courtney. All charges against Courtney were dropped and his record expunged. When asked about the victim who identified him as the attacker, Courtney said he hoped by now she recognized that he was not the attacker but if not, he hopes one day she will. "I hold no grudge and I'm heartbroken over what happened to her," Courtney said.

A 20-year-old woman who faked being raped by a stranger at the University of California Santa Cruz pleaded "no contest" Thursday to filing a false police report. UC Santa Barbara student Morgan Triplett did not appear in Santa Cruz County Court as her lawyer changed her plea from "not guilty" to "no contest." As part of the plea deal, Triplett must write a letter of apology to UC Santa Cruz, serve 60 days in a jail work release program, volunteer 200 hours of community service, and undergo 60 days of mental health therapy, and serve three years probation.

A former high school football who was wrongfully accused of rape and sentenced to six years in prison now wants the State of California to pay him for every day he had spent behind bars. Attorneys representing 26-year-old Brian Banks said their client is entitled to $100 a day for every day of his incarceration under state law. Banks was exonerated this week after his accuser, Wanetta Gibson, admitted she had made up the whole story of sexual assault ten years ago and had been reluctant to come forward because of a large settlement she received from the school district.

A Michigan woman who appealed for money to fight her cancer was charged Monday with fraud, just a few days after she was accused in another case of falsely reporting a rape and using makeup to show injuries. Besides two criminal cases filed against Sara Ylen in less than a week, she also was involved in the prosecution of James Grissom, who was released from prison last fall after nearly 10 years. Despite no physical evidence, Grissom was found guilty of raping Ylen in 2001 in a parking lot. A judge threw out the conviction after authorities learned she had made up sexual-assault allegations in California, information that wasn't available to the defense at trial.

A former California psychologist who faked a rape attack in an effort to convince her husband to move to a new neighbourhood today pleaded no contest to a felony conspiracy charge. Sacramento Superior Court Judge Kevin J. McCormick sentenced Laurie Ann M

A reported rape on the UC Santa Cruz campus that shocked a community already on edge has turned out to be a hoax, UCSC police said Thursday. The attack was alleged to have occurred in broad daylight just after noon on Sunday, Feb. 17, just days after the shooting of a student as she waited for a bus. The 21-year-old woman, who initially told police she was raped and physically assaulted by a stranger, now has admitted to campus police investigators that she fabricated the attack, University Police Chief Nader Oweis said.

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. -- A married Camp Pendleton Marine was sentenced in military court Thursday to a loss of $3,000 in pay and a letter of reprimand for attempted adultery and obstructing justice after claiming she had been raped by a fellow Marine. The woman, a staff sergeant whose name was being withheld, was facing a year in the brig and dishonorable discharge. The case began when the woman's husband, who is also a Marine, filed an adultery complaint with her commanders after she and another staff sergeant checked into a hotel following an afternoon of heavy drinking last year.

The Long Beach Unified School District won a $2.6 million default judgment against a woman whose false rape allegation in 2002 cost the school district money and landed a fellow student in jail. Wanetta Gibson was a student at Long Beach Poly High when she first sued the district for having lax security and an unsafe environment after she accused Brian Banks, a promising football star, of rape.

On the day before Thanksgiving in 2004, a 16-year-old girl walking to a friend's house on Buena Vista Avenue in Lemon Grove was sexually assaulted by a man who dragged her into the bushes near the Highway 94 underpass. She smashed his face with a CD player, fled to a passer-by's car and called the police. Although she was unable to provide enough details for a composite sketch, she described a truck with a camper shell she believed her attacker was driving. When a similar vehicle was spotted in Oceanside, the trail led detectives to Uriah Courtney, a 25-year-old construction worker from North Park. His picture was put in a photo lineup, and the victim, although not completely sure, picked him out. So did another witness from the crime scene. Courtney was arrested. The main evidence against him at trial was the eyewitness testimony. He was convicted of kidnapping and rape and sentenced to life. He told the victim in court he didn't do it and said he hoped the truth one day would come out.

When a San Jose man charged with murdering a Monte Sereno millionaire was suddenly freed last month, prosecutors acknowledged he had an airtight alibi - he was drunk and unconscious at a hospital when the victim was killed in his mansion miles away. But a mystery remained: How did the DNA of 26-year-old Lukis Anderson - who was so drunk his blood alcohol content was five times the legal limit - end up on the fingernails of slaying victim Raveesh "Ravi" Kumra? Santa Clara County prosecutors answered that question Wednesday, saying the same two paramedics who had treated Anderson for intoxication at a downtown San Jose liquor store in November had responded to Kumra's home just hours later.

Morgan Triplett Original Article07/11/2013By Daniella BeccariaThe plea deal would incude work for the county, counseling and staying off social media for 60 days.Morgan Triplett, the 20-year-old UCSB student charged with faking her rape on the ...

"A woman admitted Monday to fabricating a report of a sexual assault in an unincorporated portion of Santa Ana, authorities said. A day after telling Orange County Sheriff's Department officials that she had been grabbed from behind, dragged to a dirt lot and sexually assaulted in the 18000 block of Ervin Street, the woman admitted to deputies that she had made up the report, said Jim Amormino, a Sheriff's Department spokesman. Sheriff's deputies Monday contacted the woman, who they did not identify, on an unrelated matter when she admitted to the false report, Amormino said. The woman was admitted into a hospital for a 72-hour mental-health hold, Amormino added."