AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Texas judge has exonerated a former high school football standout who served three years in prison after being accused when he was 18 years old of sexually assaulting a young boy at a day care.
A courtroom near Austin burst into applause Wednesday after a judge declared Greg Kelley innocent and fully exonerated. He was convicted in 2014.
Kelley was arrested on the Leander High School campus a year earlier on charges of molesting a 4-year-old boy at an in-home day care. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison without parole.
But his conviction began unraveling over revelations that police botched the investigation. State District Judge Donna King ruled that police didn’t interview everyone who’d been at the day care and said Kelley had ineffective counsel during trial.