NYPD Declares DNA Match in 1994 Prospect Park Rape Case

Detectives said Tuesday they have cracked a 1994 rape case that an acclaimed newspaper columnist had infamously claimed was a hoax.

Police recently informed the victim that DNA collected after the attack on her had been matched to a serial rapist already in prison for other crimes. It's unclear whether he can be charged now because of the statute of limitations, but the breakthrough was vindication for the woman.

She told police she was walking home with groceries through Brooklyn's Prospect Park on April 26, 1994, when she was dragged into the bushes and raped. Her detailed description of her attacker allowed police to release a sketch, and DNA evidence was recovered, but no arrests were made.

Daily News columnist Mike McAlary wrote at the time that he heard from unnamed police sources that the woman invented her story because she wanted to bolster a speech she was to give at a rally about violence against lesbians.

"The woman, who will probably end up being arrested herself, invented the crime, they said, to promote her rally," McAlary wrote in a column called "Rape hoax the real crime."

He persisted even after DNA was discovered, writing three columns. The last column's headline was: "I'm right, but that's no reason to cheer."

The woman sued McAlary for libel, but a judge dismissed the case in part because McAlary had been relying on information from police. An attorney who represented the Daily News and McAlary said then that McAlary's reporting had been "vindicated" and it was police who "got some stuff wrong." McAlary died in 1998 at age 41.

The woman's attorney, Martin Garbus, said Tuesday she's owed apologies from the Daily News and the police department.

"This is a woman who had to live for 23 years with a false accusation of lying, with threats to the newspaper that she was about to be arrested," Garbus said. "It's horrific."

The Daily News didn't immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.