A Long Branch man who spent almost 28 years trying to prove he was innocent of a rape for which he served four years in prison will not be able to collect money from the state for being wrongfully imprisoned, a panel of appellate judges ruled Tuesday.

The judges said that Dion Harrell, now 53, is not entitled to the $50,000 a year provided for in the state’s Compensation for Persons Mistakenly Imprisoned Act because he did not apply for it within two years of getting out of prison, as the act requires.

Harrell was not exonerated of the 1988 rape until 2016, some 19 years after he was released from prison. In the end, DNA testing completed in 2016 concluded Harrell did not commit the rape. But the DNA analysis that cleared him was not available when he went to trial in Monmouth County in 1992, his attorney, Glenn Andrew Garber, argued.

After Harrell was released from prison in 1997, access to DNA testing was limited to imprisoned convicts seeking to prove their innocence, and the state Legislature only made it available to freed convicts in 2015, Garber argued.

Even then, the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office at first rejected Harrell’s request to turn over the DNA evidence for testing. After the Prosecutor’s Office reversed course, the DNA evidence was analyzed, and Harrell’s conviction was vacated on Aug. 3, 2016.

Garber argued that barring Harrell's claim was contrary to the Legislature's intent when it enacted the law.

Although Harrell filed his claim for compensation on Aug. 1, 2018, within two years of the court vacating his conviction and sentence, Judges Jack M. Sabatino, Thomas W. Sumners Jr. and Arnold L. Natali Jr. of the Appellate Division of Superior Court wrote in their decision that the law is clear that the statute of limitations starts to run upon a person’s release from prison.

The judges said they rejected Harrell’s arguments “as they effectively request that we rewrite a clear and unambiguous statute and ignore the Legislature’s clear manifestation that claims like Harrell’s must be filed within two years ‘after his release from imprisonment’ or ‘after the grant of a pardon.’"

Harrell also had requested $25,000 a year for every year he was required to register as a sex offender, under Megan’s Law.

Attorneys for the state Treasury Department argued Harrell was ineligible for any compensation for being on the sex-offender registry because he had pleaded guilty to violating the requirements of Megan’s Law. They also argued that Harrell should not receive compensation for being imprisoned because he had received a consecutive sentence for an unrelated burglary, according to the appellate decision.

The Treasury Department argued “he would have still …spent four years in prison for the burglary regardless of the outcome of the sexual assault charges’’ and consequently he should not receive any compensation for the four years he was unjustly incarcerated on the sexual assault offense," the judges wrote.

Harrell stood trial in 1992 in the September 1988 rape of a 17-year-old girl in Long Branch Despite an alibi — Harrell was playing basketball with friends at the time of the rape — he was convicted of sexual assault and sentenced to eight years in prison.

He had pleaded guilty in the unrelated burglary and was sentenced to a four-year, consecutive term for that.

Harrell was released on parole on March 26, 1997.

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Kathleen Hopkins, a reporter in New Jersey since 1985, covers crime, court cases, legal issues, unsolved mysteries and just about every major murder trial to hit Monmouth and Ocean counties. Contact her at khopkins@app.com; 732-643-4202.