July 29th, 2011

Yesterday afternoon Jerry Dixon pled guilty to three rapes, including a brutal Roxbury rape for which Anthony Powell was wrongly convicted. Powell was 12 years into his 20-year sentence when he was exonerated with help from the New England Innocence Project. Powell was present during yesterday’s plea hearing at Suffolk Superior Court but declined to talk to reporters. In an earlier statement given to the Boston Globe on July 20, Powell explained, “If you think that an innocent person cannot be convicted of a crime in Massachusetts, you are fooling yourself. It happened to me. There are innocent people in prison in Massachusetts right now.” Dixon was sentenced to10 years and one day for each of the three rape counts, totaling 30 years in prison.

Read the Boston Globe article here.