Authorities want innocence certificate vacated in case of man cleared by DNA

In the years since DNA pointed toward Bennie Starks' innocence in the rape and beating of a woman in Waukegan, Lake County authorities have worked persistently but unsuccessfully to continue holding him accountable for the attack.

Starks had been in prison for 20 years in 2006 when appeals judges granted him a new trial and set him free on bond, citing semen evidence that didn't match him. The following years brought a series of legal victories for Starks, and prosecutors eventually dropped all the charges. In 2013, a Lake County judge issued him a certificate declaring his innocence.

Now attorneys for the Waukegan police and others say the certificate should be taken back.

The unusual effort to have Starks' certificate of innocence vacated is being led by lawyers for the police and forensic experts he is suing. The petition filed Dec. 8 acknowledges the certificate could help Starks, 55, win a substantial sum in the lawsuit. The petitioners argue the victim made up the rape allegation but accurately accused Starks of battering her, a theory that differs from authorities' past accounts.

One of Starks' lawyers, Lauren Kaeseberg, called the effort "outrageous" and said Starks' attorneys would fight it.

"What these parties have done in Bennie's case sends a message to every exonerated person in this state. ... 'Watch out, because your fight may never be over,'" she said.

Starks could not be reached for comment. An attorney for one party seeking the certificate revocation declined to comment, calling the petition "self-explanatory," while lawyers for other parties could not be reached. A hearing is scheduled on the matter Feb. 18.

Starks was convicted in 1986 of aggravated criminal sexual assault and aggravated battery, among other charges, after the victim, a woman in her late 60s, identified him as the man who dragged her into a ravine and beat, bit and raped her. He was serving a 60-year prison sentence when DNA first suggested his innocence in the early 2000s, court records show. Prosecutors, however, argued that the semen might have come from consensual sex with a different man, even though the victim testified she hadn't had sex for weeks before the attack.

Starks' was one of four cases in which prosecutors under former Lake County State's Attorney Michael Waller argued that seemingly exculpatory forensic evidence didn't clear an inmate of a violent crime. All four cases fell apart during the final years of Waller's 22-year reign, but only after Starks and the other three men had spent a combined total of 60 years behind bars.

After Starks' release, court defeats prevented prosecutors from using the earlier testimony of the victim, who died several years ago, and they dropped the sexual assault charges in 2012. But the battery conviction stood, and Waller's office defended it from attacks by Starks' lawyers.

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Authorities want innocence certificate vacated in case of man cleared by DNA