The woman, dirty, disheveled and in tears, ran over to a patrol car parked along a Harlem street in the early morning of Jan. 18, 1991. She told police officers she had been kidnapped at knife point near her home in Queens and raped by three black men, whom she identified.

Before the end of the month, the police arrested two of the men she had named — Gregory Counts, then 19, and VanDyke Perry, then 21. They were charged with rape, sodomy, kidnapping and criminal possession of a weapon, according to court records. The third man was never caught.

Investigators had no physical evidence. Semen recovered from the woman did not match the two accused men. The prosecution’s case relied heavily on her testimony, which was inconsistent. The defense argued the woman, a recovering crack addict, fabricated the story to protect her boyfriend, who had shot Mr. Perry two months earlier and was wanted by the police, court records show.

Yet, in 1992, a jury convicted Mr. Counts and Mr. Perry on all counts except for the weapons charges. Mr. Perry ended up serving 11 years in prison, Mr. Counts 26.