Innocence Project New Orleans Client to be Released Pending Retrial

11.19.15


Innocence Project New Orleans

client Robert Jones was granted bail Tuesday and may be released as early as Thursday after 24 years in prison for a 1992 rape and robbery which he maintains he did not commit, according to the

Times-Picayune

.

Jones’ convictions were overturned last year, but the district attorney proposed a bail amount of over $2 million. To attempt to lower the bail, Jones’ attorneys presented a short version of his defense to an Orleans Parish judge, who then set the bail at $36,000.

Jones became a suspect in the 1992 incident when he was arrested based on an erroneous tip for an unrelated murder. His mug shot was repeatedly shown on television during the murder investigation which is why witnesses in the rape and robbery case picked him out of a photo lineup, his attorneys say.

Innocence Project New Orleans sought to have the victim’s rape kit retested, since the original testing results were inconclusive but, somewhere along the line, the rape kit was lost.

Jones was offered a plea deal which would allow him to be released with time served in October, but he refused.

A trial date for Jones’ retrial has not yet been set.

Read the

Times-Picayune

story

here

.

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