Brian Banks logged onto Facebook last year, and a new friend request startled him.

It was the woman who, nearly a decade ago, accused him of rape when they were both students at Long Beach Poly High School.

Banks had recently ended a five-year stint in prison for the rape, and was unemployed and beaten down. So he replied with a question: Would she meet with him and a private investigator? She agreed.

At the meeting, which was secretly recorded, Wanetta Gibson said she had lied.

"No," she was quoted as saying, "he did not rape me."

That admission set off an extraordinary chain of events that culminated Thursday morning. A Superior Court judge dismissed Banks’ conviction, undoing 10 years of turmoil in a hearing that lasted less than a minute.

Banks, 26, bowed his head and trembled, his eyes flooded with tears. His girlfriend, Pamela Soladar, yelped with joy. They made their way to each other and embraced, Banks too overwhelmed to speak.

“You made it,” she whispered to him.

It had been a long, maddening journey.

In the summer of 2002, Banks was considered a top college football prospect. A 6-foot-4, 225-pound middle linebacker at Long Beach Poly High, Banks had been courted by USC, UCLA and other football powerhouses.