Clarence Moses-EL

Clarence Moses-EL has served 28 years of a 48-year sentence for an attack he has always maintained, he didn’t commit. (note: on 12/16/2015 Moses-EL’s conviction was vacated)

The victim of the violent sexual assault initially identified two other men as her assailants, but then told police that the attacker was Moses-EL after his identity came to her in a dream. That dream was the only evidence linking Moses-EL to the case.

Susan Greene, editor of the Colorado Independent, first came across Moses-EL’s case when she was a reporter at the Denver Post working on a 2007 series “Trashing the Truth.”  Greene says that Moses-EL raised $1000 from fellow prisoners to have the evidence from the case DNA tested. Police packaged the rape kit, bed sheets and victim’s clothes in a box they marked “DO NOT DESTROY.” Then, before the box could be sent to the lab, an officer tossed it in a dumpster.  That evidence could have exonerated Moses-EL 20 years ago.

Recently convicted rapist L.C. Jackson confessed to having sex with and beating the victim at the same time and place she said she was attacked. Jackson was one of the two men initially identified by the victim.

Pamela Sanders, Jackson’s live-in girlfriend in 1987, corroborated that testimony that he had left their house during the time the victim was attacked a few doors away.

In the light of that confession and other evidence, Denver District Judge Kandace Gerdes has until October to decide whether to grant a new trial to Clarence Moses-EL.  Susan Greene says an announcement regarding a new trial is expected in the next 3 weeks.  Read Greene’s report about the case in the Colorado Independent.