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Former Aquia Harbour teen files suit in attempt to clear his name in recanted rape accusation
Stafford County prosecutors, sheriff's deputies and social workers had had previous encounters with the girl and evidence of her untruthfulness before this allegation.
Rafferty told the boy's father the boy should plead guilty because the prosecution had DNA test results that conclusively linked him to the crime, but a lab report shows the test was never conducted.
Though the boy is now 18 and an adult, neither he nor the girl is being named because of their ages at the time of the incident. Both sets of parents have different surnames from their children.
IMPACT ON THE ACCUSED
The suit claims the boy and his family suffer ongoing effects from the false accusation and from having his name on the sex-offender registry. They have moved twice since the boy's arrest.
"We live in constant fear--fear of future allegations, fear of strangers who see the Sex Offender Registry, fear of retaliation by Eric Olsen for continuing to maintain our son's innocence, fear of our young sons being out without us and without alibis," Cherri Dulaney, the boy's mother, said in her sworn statement. "I have little hope that anyone can undo the damage that has been done to him."
Dulaney said her oldest son lives with the effects of being imprisoned as a sex offender.
"[My son] is a different person now than before he was incarcerated," she said. "[He] continues to have great difficulty trusting people and fears that he will have to go away again."
He can't shake the habits learned while held in a juvenile correction center.
"He carries around a knapsack containing his valued belongings, he paces around the yard and insists on living according to a set, inflexible schedule," she said.
A younger brother fears he could meet the same fate.
Since the accused was released to his family in late February, a neighborhood girl has made a false sexual allegation against one of his brothers and someone has left a note on their door reading: "We don't want a rapist living in our neighborhood."
When police investigated the allegation against the brother, the girl admitted she made it up because she didn't like having a convicted rapist next door, Dulaney said.
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