For 16 years, Loretta Zilinger loathed Dean Cage for what she believed he did to her when she was 15 years old.

Dressed in her immaculate Catholic school uniform, she was on her way to class in October 1994. She heard footsteps coming up behind her. By then, it was too late.

A tall man attacked her, hauled her into an empty building and threatened to kill her. She kept her eyes open as he performed sex acts on her. She used her hands to touch his face; her fingers traced his nose, his eyes and his lips. She wanted to remember him.

Several days later, Chicago police brought her into the meat market where Dean Cage, a tall black man, worked. A police officer instructed her to identify her attacker by gently tapping the officer's arm.

Instead, she wailed frantically. She pointed at Dean Cage. 'I'm innocent'

Cage, then 26, was shocked when the police arrested him.

"I'm innocent," he insisted.

That didn't matter. Two years later in 1996, Zilinger's testimony would convict Cage, sending him to prison for 40 years. Zilinger was absolutely sure. Even his voice sounded like her attacker's, she said.

After four appeals and 14 years in prison, Cage won his freedom. A sample of the assailant's saliva, retrieved from the victim's body in 1994, was the proof he needed. A DNA test, which was not available at the time of the trial, was performed on the saliva and excluded him.

He was determined to start a new life with his family. He hadn't been able to be the husband, father and son he wanted to be during his years in prison. He had postponed wedding his fiance and missed his sons' graduations. When his elderly mother fell ill, he couldn't care for her.

"I thought, 'How could this person say these terrible things about me?' " Cage said. "The people I hung around knew what kind of a person I was, that I wasn't a rapist."

All her fault

Cage was freed from a state prison in Canton, Illinois. Several hundred miles away in Hobart, Indiana, Loretta Zilinger learned the news of his release. She was petrified.

"The first thing I asked [the prosecutor] was to ensure my family would be safe," she recalled.

She cried at work when she learned about the news. She cried in the car ride home. She locked herself in her room and cried some more.

She was convinced the DNA test was all wrong. She was told by the assailant to rub dirt on her naked body, which could have skewed the DNA results, she reasoned.

Meanwhile, Cage's exoneration made the local news. She read comments on news Web sites that called her a terrible person for putting an innocent man with a family behind bars. She ran into people who knew about her ordeal and told her, "It's your fault."

She was angry at her attacker. She spent years in counseling sessions that ate away at her family's savings. She managed to graduate from high school, and then college, despite the nightmares that disturbed her sleep.

The sexual assault affected her relationships with her stepfather and her husband. It was hard to trust men, even her four little boys.

Now that Cage was free, she prayed he would stay away from her.

An unexpected reunion

In November 2009, Zilinger, 31, packed her bags and headed for Los Angeles, California. It was her first visit.

She was going to share her ordeal with the world on the syndicated "Dr. Phil" show. She agreed to appear on behalf of rape victims like herself, who were too scared to speak up.

But Zilinger had no idea the show would offer her the chance to face the man she thought attacked her. During the taping, host Phil McGraw, a psychologist, explained the DNA tests to her.

Then, the show offered to let her meet Cage the next day.

Filled with anger and grief, Zilinger said she would have to think about it. She was still confident Cage's DNA results were incorrect.

Later that night, after talking to her husband of 10 years, she changed her mind. Zilinger's husband had worked as a police officer in Indiana for almost eight years. He knew witnesses made mistakes and that DNA tests were highly accurate.

That conversation was the first time the couple had really discussed the rape. For all those years, Zilinger had kept the attack to herself.

"I eventually knew I had to face him," she said. "I felt guilty that I was responsible for all the years he spent in jail."

It was Cage's first time in Los Angeles, too. The 43-year-old thought he was doing another interview about his exoneration. He didn't expect to see his accuser there.

His two years of freedom with his family had changed Cage. The resentment he held toward Zilinger had faded. He had goals, like finding a job and raising his 3-year-old granddaughter.

The attacker, who has not been found, had ruined both their lives, he concluded. They were both made victims.

On the show's stage, Zilinger and Cage embraced

"I hope you get the closure, and I hope you can find the person who did this," he said to her.

"Can you help me?" she asked.

"Can we help each other?" Cage responded.

Making a difference

Zilinger and Cage are sharing their story to help exonerated people and victims who have misidentified their assailants. Most victims truly believe the exonerated person is guilty despite DNA evidence, according to experts who study wrongful convictions.

They plan to start an organization to educate groups about wrongful convictions and spread their message of forgiveness.

"She was sincere in her apology," Cage said. "I knew it was the right thing to do."

For the first time since the attack, Zilinger no longer lives in fear. She feels at peace, like she has closure, and she wants to help other women reach that point.

"I realized I can't always call myself a victim," she said. "I have to start calling myself a survivor."

She has asked the Chicago Police Department to reopen her case. She wants the DNA evidence that freed Cage to find her attacker.

Since the original taping in November, the two have had lunch together. Cage has met with Zilinger's brother, who is helping him find a better-paying job. Since his release, re-integration into society has been harder than Cage expected. He works a minimum wage job at a barbeque joint to earn rent money for his family.

Things are looking up, though. His wedding has been delayed for 16 years, first by his wrongful arrest in 1994 and recently by the rocky economy.

But Cage plans to marry his fianceé in May -- and he has already invited Zilinger.

Dr. Conrad Murray, personal physician to Michael Jackson, was charged Monday with involuntary manslaughter in connection with the pop star's death last summer.

A criminal complaint filed earlier in the day alleged that Murray "did unlawfully, and without malice, kill Michael Joseph Jackson."

Murray turned himself in shortly before 4 p.m. at a branch courthouse near Los Angeles International Airport. He pleaded not guilty during a brief hearing before Judge Keith L. Schwartz.

The judge set bail at $75,000, despite arguments from prosecutor David Walgren that Murray is a flight risk.

The judge refused to suspend Murray's medical license as a term of his bond, but he did order him not to use any anesthesia on patients.

"I don't want you sedating people," Schwartz told Murray.

Michael Jackson's family -- including his parents, three of his brothers and one sister -- filled the first two rows of the small courtroom.

The involuntary manslaughter charge means that Murray caused Jackson's death by acting "without due caution and circumspection."

If convicted, Murray would face a maximum four-year prison sentence, according to prosecutors.

More on involuntary manslaughter

Murray traveled to Los Angeles at the end of January from his home in Houston, Texas, in expectation of possible charges, his lawyer said.

He used part of his time last week to visit the pop star's resting place in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.

Murray, a cardiologist, was hired as Jackson's personal physician last spring as the singer prepared for comeback concerts in London, England.

The doctor told Los Angeles police that he was with Jackson at his $100,000-a-month rented Holmby Hills mansion through the early morning hours of June 25, 2009, in an effort to help the pop star fall asleep, according to a police affidavit.

He administered sleep aids, and after Jackson finally began sleeping in the late morning hours, Murray said, he left the bedroom for "about two minutes maximum," the affidavit says.

"Upon his return, Murray noticed that Jackson was no longer breathing," it says.

The doctor stayed with Jackson as an ambulance rushed him to UCLA Medical Center.

Efforts at CPR proved fruitless, and Jackson was pronounced dead at 2:26 p.m.

The Los Angeles County coroner ruled Jackson's death a homicide, resulting from a combination of drugs, primarily propofol and lorazepam.

The coroner's statement said Jackson died from "acute propofol intoxication," but there were "other conditions contributing to death: benzodiazepine effect." Lorazepam and two other drugs Murray said he used are benzodiazepines.

The doctor told investigators he had given Jackson three anti-anxiety drugs to help him sleep in the hours before he stopped breathing, a police affidavit said.

Murray had been treating Jackson for insomnia for six weeks at the time of the singer's death. The doctor told investigators he gave Jackson 50 milligrams of propofol, the generic name for Diprivan, diluted with the anesthetic lidocaine every night via an intravenous drip.

The doctor told police he was worried that Jackson was becoming addicted to the drug and tried to wean him off it.

During the two nights before Jackson's death, Murray said, he put together combinations of other drugs that succeeded in helping Jackson sleep.

Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon has received probation before judgment under a plea deal that required her to step down from office.

Dixon declined to address the court as she was sentenced Thursday morning. She resigned. City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake was sworn in as mayor at a noon ceremony.

Dixon was convicted of embezzling gift cards donated to the city for needy families and lying about gifts from her former boyfriend, a prominent developer.

Judge Dennis Sweeney says Dixon is receiving "a heavy penalty -- a badge of dishonor that she will live with for the rest of her life." But Sweeney also says Dixon was fortunate to get the plea deal because the cases against her "were strong if not indeed overwhelming."

A Houston mother who was arrested Sunday is accused of starving her 8-year-old daughter to death inside an empty apartment.

Halle Smith weighed 15 pounds when she died, and the only photos available of her -- taken at the time of her death -- are disturbing, said Estella Olguin, a Child Protective Services spokeswoman.

“[They are] probably the worst pictures I have ever seen,” Olguin said. “It’s upsetting to look at them.”

Halle was limp and unresponsive when her mother brought her to a hospital emergency room in January 2009. Because Halle was a special-needs child who had to be hooked up to a feeding tube, the investigation took time, as did determining her cause of death, investigators said.

“The officers had to get an autopsy report, complete sets of medical records, and then conduct a thorough investigation to determine if this was, in fact, a deliberate injury,” said Donna Hawkins with the district attorney's office.

Prosecutors said they now believe Halle's mother, Almita Nicole Lockhart, 34, isolated her in an empty secluded apartment off Northborough and did not feed her.

“The medical examiner said her death was a homicide and said it was due to malnutrition and dehydration,” Hawkins said.

CPS said Lockhart is the mother of nine other children. However, when CPS looked into her situation after Halle's death, they said they found none of the children, who are between the ages of 2 to 18, were living at home. Some of them hadn't been in school, CPS said. CPS said it is in the process of terminating Lockhart's parental rights.

“We had concerns because, once we found those children, they were being taken care of by adults who had drugs and weapons in the home,” Olguin said.

CPS said it had visited Halle and Lockhart's home back in 2006 after Lockhart was convicted and served time for illegal drugs.

“When we saw her she appeared healthy. The house was furnished. There was food in the home. The children appeared healthy,” Olguin said. “So something happened in the last two-and-a-half years.”

According to court documents, Lockhart was offered free nursing care for Halley 24-7, but she told them to stay away.

Medical documents show when Halley was 2 she weighed 35 pounds, but that on her last visit to the doctor in 2006 she weighed just 27 pounds. That is the same year CPS visited her home.

At the time of her death, the medical examiner said Halle had lost 40 percent of her body weight and it was clear the mother was "failing to properly nourish" the child.

CPS said it is reviewing what it could have done differently.

“We don’t have the right to just go check up on people, unless we have a new report,” Olguin explained.

She said the agency had not heard anything about Halle’s family for more than two years.

An anti-abortion group targeting African-American women has begun putting up dozens of billboards around metro Atlanta, declaring black children to be “an endangered species.”

Ryan Bomberger, co-founder of the Radiance Foundation, said 35 should be up by Feb. 15. “We’re aiming for a lot more, but that’s where we’re at,” Bomberger said.

The billboards were announced at a state Capitol news conference at which another group, Georgia Right to Life, announced that it would back legislation this session that would make it a crime to “solicit a woman to have an abortion based on the race or sex of the unborn child.”

The two groups are citing what they say are federal statistics that indicate 56 percent of abortions in Georgia are performed on African-American women, though black make up 30 percent of the general population.

Did a former Detroit City Councilwoman dine and dash? The owner of a couple of Greektown restaurants testified in U.S. District Court Tuesday that Monica Conyers often walked out without paying her bill.

Greektown Businessman Jim Pappas says Conyers probably owes about $3,000 to the Mosaic restaurant.

Those accusations came Thursday as Pappas testified about his dealings with Conyers and her former chief of staff Sam Riddle, who is on trial in federal court facing extortion and bribery charges.

Pappas said he paid Riddle, former Detroit political consultant, a $10,000 bribe as a favor to Conyers, because she persuaded her husband, Congressman John Conyer, s to support a controversial hazardous waste injection well in Romulus, operated by Pappas.

Conyers pleaded guilty last year to accepting money for her vote on a sludge contract in 2007. The charges against Riddle include that deal.

The government is expected to wrap up its case against Riddle this week.

Riddle stands accused of conspiracy, interfering with commerce by extortion, bribery and making false statements. The government claims he took money from people doing business with the city council or Detroit's pension board.

Riddle says he's not guilty.

Chief stays, but wrongful-termination suit looms for black group

A judge dismissed a lawsuit to oust the leadership of the nation's oldest black Greek-letter sorority, including its president, former Chicago Housing Authority financial executive Barbara A. McKinzie.

But the Chicago-based organization is headed for trial in a wrongful-termination lawsuit filed by a former staffer who said she was fired for questioning spending and alerting state authorities.

Eight members of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. sued in June to remove McKinzie, claiming she misappropriated millions of dollars in AKA money, using some of it to pay for a wax statue of herself in a Baltimore museum. They also claimed she arranged for a $4,000 monthly stipend to be paid to her after she leaves the traditionally unpaid office. Her four-year term ends this year.

In her ruling Monday in Washington, D.C., Superior Court Judge Natalia M. Combs Greene criticized the plaintiffs for making "hyperbolic allegations riddled with buzzwords."

"Throughout her tenure, Barbara McKinzie has led Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. with the utmost integrity and professionalism, and this ruling reaffirms that very fact," said Dale Cooter, attorney for McKinzie.

Plaintiffs' attorney Edward W. Gray Jr. said his clients are reviewing their options.

Meanwhile, the case is still on for a Chicago woman who said she lost her job as meetings director at AKA's Stony Island Avenue headquarters in June for refusing to sign off on McKinzie's expenditures, then complaining to the state's attorney general's office.

Cook County Judge Ronald Bartkowicz recently denied the sorority's request that the wrongful-termination suit be dismissed.

AKA, which has 60,000 paid members, has until Feb. 22 to answer allegations that it fired Kenitra Shackelford-Johnson within a week of her e-mailing a complaint to the attorney general's office last June. In August, the sorority denied any wrongdoing, saying Shackelford-Johnson resigned.

"We have every intention of going forward with this case and don't see any reason why it won't go to trial," said Ruth Major, the lawyer representing Shackelford-Johnson.

McKinzie -- former chief financial officer of the Cook County Forest Preserve District -- hasn't shied away from the spotlight, appearing at the National Urban League 2009 conference in Chicago and addressing a packed Regal Theater to tout a partnership with Coca-Cola Co. during a Sprite Step Off competition last month.

Ten members of a U.S. missionary group who said they were trying to rescue 33 child victims of Haiti’s devastating earthquake were charged with child kidnapping and criminal association on Thursday, their lawyer said.

Edwin Coq said after a court hearing that a judge found sufficient evidence to charge the Americans, who were arrested Friday at Haiti’s border with the Dominican Republic. Coq attended Thursday’s hearing and represents the entire group in Haiti.

Group leader Laura Silsby has said they were trying to take orphans and abandoned children to an orphanage in the neighboring Dominican Republic. She acknowledged they had not sought permission from Haitian officials, but said they just meant to help victims of the quake.

Nelson Mandela, fellow veterans of South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle and family have raised glasses of bubbly to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his release from prison.

Mandela was released Feb. 11, 1990 after 27 years in prison, most of it spent on Cape Town’s Robben Island. In video released from a celebration at his Johannesburg home Thursday, Cyril Ramaphosa, an ANC leader who helped organize Mandela’s welcome two decades ago, proposes a toast in which he says that Mandela remains an inspiration and that the sacrifices he made would never be forgotten.

Mandela’s former wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, and some of their children and grandchildren joined the celebration.
Mandela, who turns 92 on July 18, had largely retired from public life.