DNA Tests Clear Man
Cobb County Rape Case

Associated Press, December 8, 2005

MARIETTA, Ga. - A man who has spent nearly 25 years in prison for rape was expected to be set free Thursday afternoon after DNA tests showed another man committed the crime.

Robert Clark has always maintained his innocence in the 1981 attack in which a woman was abducted from outside an Atlanta restaurant, taken to Cobb County and raped repeatedly.

Clark was identified by the woman, convicted and sentenced to two life sentences plus 20 years for rape, kidnapping and armed robbery.

But recent DNA tests show that Clark - who had no prior adult felony convictions - did not commit the crime.

Clark's lawyers say Floyd Antonio "Tony" Arnold, a friend of Clark, committed the assault.

Department of Corrections records show that Arnold was later convicted of sodomy in Fulton County in 1985 and convicted there a year later of being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm. He is serving five years in prison for a DeKalb County conviction of cruelty to children and is scheduled to be released Jan. 31.

The Innocence Project says Arnold's DNA profile was matched in 2003 to two unsolved rapes in DeKalb and Fulton counties. He has not been charged with either crime.

"Despite the fact that Robert was a head taller than the description, once the police locked in on him, it was all over," Peter Neufeld, one of Clark's lawyers from the New York-based Innocence Project, said in a statement. "Tunnel vision not only cost Robert a quarter-century of freedom, it enabled a serial rapist to assault at least three more victims."

Cobb County District Attorney Pat Head said his office cooperated with the Innocence Project after initially balking at the defense's choice of a non-accredited DNA lab.

"Once an accredited lab was selected we have cooperated in every way. I'm just glad we still had the materials to test after this many years," Head said Wednesday.

Head would not say if he will file charges against Arnold in the Cobb County case, adding that he could not comment on an "ongoing investigation."

Clark was arrested after police found him with the victim's car. Clark told police he got the car from Arnold, but authorities never tried to follow up that lead, according to a court motion.

Former Cobb County Assistant District Attorney Chuck Clay, who prosecuted Clark, said he was shocked to hear about the recent test results.

"I remember it well, it was a horrible, horrible case. In the six years that I was a prosecutor, this was one of the cases that I never had questions about," Clay said.

"It's certainly a sobering reminder that everything can be done right in a case and you can still get a wrong result."

If cleared, Clark will be the 164th person nationwide whose convictions have been overturned by DNA tests, said Neufeld, who co-founded the Innocence Project in 1992.