The Nation - News from Dec. 28, 1987

Gary Dotson, freed from an Illinois prison after his accuser recanted, was denied bond on new charges of battery and disorderly conduct and may have to finish his original 25-to 50-year sentence for rape. Dotson was arrested Saturday, two days after he was given a “last chance” parole, and Cook County Associate Judge Martin McDonough said the state Department of Corrections considers the arrest a parole violation. Defense attorney Thomas Breen said Dotson, 30, had been drinking before the incident, in which he is accused of assaulting a tavern cook. Breen said Dotson’s wife, Camille, told Dotson on Thursday that she wanted a divorce. “That pushed this alcoholic over the edge,” Breen said. Gov. James R. Thompson commuted Dotson’s sentence in 1985 after Dotson’s accuser, Cathleen Crowell Webb, recanted testimony that had convicted him of rape in 1979. Dotson was reimprisoned earlier this year after alcohol-related brushes with the law in violation of his parole.