Almost 20 years after being convicted for a rape at an East End hospital, a Homewood man will be freed Monday because DNA testing proved he did not commit the crime.

At a hearing before Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge John Zottola, Thomas Doswell, now 44, who has protested his innocence since the day he was charged with the crime, is to be set free after charges are dropped by the Allegheny County District Attorney's office.

The action will culminate a flurry of legal activity over the past 10 days that started when DNA tests, which the prosecutor had fought against, excluded Doswell from the rape of a 48-year-old woman in 1986 at the former Forbes Hospital in the city's East End.

After checking with the victim, the district attorney's office vacated the sentence Monday. Doswell was brought to the Allegheny County Jail from the State Correctional Institution at Forest County later in the week. He will appear before Zottola at 11:30 a.m. Monday, where an official motion to drop the charges is to be entered by prosecutors.

The DNA testing and associated legal work was done by the Innocence Project at the Cardozo School of Law of Yeshiva University in New York City. It has exonerated more than 160 wrongfully convicted individuals over the past decade.

More details in tomorrow's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.