Allegations:
On Nov. 19, 1994, a 15-year-old girl walking on the street was raped on the city's South Side. The victim was white and only knew her attacker was African-American and that he'd warned her not to open her eyes or she'd be killed. She also contracted multiple sexually transmitted diseases from the rape. Based on an anonymoust tip, officers brought the victim to Ben's Meat Market, where Cage worked, and she identified him as her attacker. At the time of the rape, Cage was at home with his fiance and, once in police custody, he could prove he had no sexually transmitted diseases. Officers charged Cage with the 15-year-old's rape anyway, and his bond was set at half a million dollars, which Cage's family was unable to pay. Officers also tried to link a second, unrelated rape of a 29-year-old African-American woman to the Cage, but Cage was later acquitted of this other woman's rape thanks to DNA evidence. Instead of trying to find the victim's actual attacker, officers then decided to portray Cage as a serial rapist and tie him to a string of at least eight other rapes alongside the one involving the 15-year-old girl. To this end, officers fabricated evidence, manipulated witnesses, destroyed police reports and obscured the fact that Cage's DNA and fingerprints were never found at the crime scene where the 15-year-old girl was raped. In 1996, Cage was convicted of three counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault and sentenced to 20 years in prison. While incarcerated, Cage pleaded with the courts to permit DNA testing on the biological material recovered from the 15-year-old victim's rape, even offering to pay for the testing himself. His requests were denied until 2006, when the Cook County State's Attorneys' Office finally agreed to the testing. Cage was exonerated and the criminal charges against him were dismissed thanks to the DNA evidence.