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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.

More than 2,000 people who were falsely convicted of serious crimes have been exonerated in the United States in the past 23 years, according to a new archive compiled at two universities. There is no official record-keeping system for exonerations of convicted criminals in the country, so academics set one up. The new national registry, or database, painstakingly assembled by the University of Michigan Law School and the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law, is the most complete list of exonerations ever compiled. The database compiled and analyzed by the researchers contains information on 873 exonerations for which they have the most detailed evidence. The researchers are aware of nearly 1,200 other exonerations, for which they have less data.

Lee Finlayson, a captain with the Grand Rapids fire department, was arrested and locked up for two weeks after his girlfriend filed criminal charges against him including rape. The charges were later dropped after evidence that the text messages used as evidence against him were fake. Finlayson said he lost two weeks of his life and spent $10,000 trying to prove his innocence. As firefighters go, Captain Finlayson is considered one of the best. He was voted the 2011 Grand Rapids firefighter of the year. In September however, he was arrested stemming from a warrant out of Pennsylvania. "You are given absolutely zero information," said Finlayson. "Nobody will talk to you."

A Comstock Park woman faces criminal charges after police say she admitted to creating false Facebook accounts with her ex-boyfriend's personal information to make it appear that his new girlfriend was threatening her. Cheryl Nelson, 52, is charged with false report of a felony and unlawful posting of a message. Nelson, over the course of a year between November 2011 and last October, made at least eight criminal complaints to the Kent County Sheriff's Department, saying she had been the victim of stalking, harassment, assault and home invasion.

The National Registry of Exonerations is a joint project of the University of the Michigan Law School and the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law. We provide detailed information about every known exoneration in the United States since 1989-cases in which a person was wrongly convicted of a crime and later cleared of all the charges.

Mikayla Lynn Zachman-Clark Original Article01/08/2014By MATT TROUTMANTRAVERSE CITY - A Traverse City woman faces a criminal charge after authorities said she lied about being drugged and raped by her ex-boyfriend.Mikayla Lynn Zachman-Clark, 18,...