Baltimore prosecutors drop charges against Adnan Syed, as last-ditch DNA tests exclude Syed

Baltimore prosecutors on Tuesday dropped the charges against Adnan Syed, the man whose legal saga rose to international renown because of the hit podcast “Serial.”

The abrupt move comes after Syed’s conviction in the 1999 killing of Hae Min Lee was overturned last month. However, his murder, kidnapping and robbery charges loomed while the city State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby’s office considered whether to dismiss his case or try him again in his Woodlawn High School sweetheart’s death.

Mosby said her decision hinged on new, last-ditch DNA testing being conducted on evidence collected in the decades-old homicide. The DNA test results excluded Syed, the public defender’s office, which is representing Syed, said in a news release after court Tuesday.

“Finally, Adnan Syed is able to live as a free man,” Syed’s attorney, Erica Suter, said in a statement. “The DNA results confirmed what we have already known and what underlies all of the current proceedings: that Adnan is innocent and lost 23 years of his life serving time for a crime he did not commit.”

Suter, who is also the director of the Innocence Project Clinic at the University of Baltimore School of Law, participated alongside city prosecutors in a yearlong investigation. Together, the attorneys discovered two people they now consider alternative suspects in Lee’s death. Both suspects were known to the authorities all along, but at least one was not disclosed to Syed’s defense, they said.

The revelation led Mosby’s office to move to vacate Syed’s conviction, with her prosecutors saying they’d lost faith in his guilty verdict. On Sept. 19, Baltimore Circuit Judge Melissa Phinn tossed out Syed’s conviction and set a 30-day deadline for Mosby’s office to decide what to do about Syed’s case.

Mosby said last month that her decision on Syed’s case hinged on pending DNA testing being conducted on evidence of Lee’s killing. Before the last round of DNA tests in the case, the results of which were revealed for the first time Tuesday, the analysis of genetic matter collected during the investigation of Lee’s death had been largely inconclusive and proved useless.

But Mosby, a Democrat serving her second and last term as the city’s top prosecutor, has said she would be prepared to certify Syed’s innocence, making him eligible to apply for wrongful conviction compensation from the state, if the DNA testing came back inconclusive or pointed to another suspect. She maintained that her office would retry Syed if DNA implicated him in the killing.

If she formally declares Syed is innocent, he will be in line for significant financial benefits from the state for being wrongfully incarcerated for more than two decades. Under the Walter Lomax Act, Syed would receive nearly $2.2 million for the years he served in prison. He is also entitled to five years of health care, housing and free tuition, according to state law.

In September, Phinn scheduled a court date for Oct. 19, exactly a month after she tossed Syed’s guilty finding. The hearing in reception court Tuesday morning was not docketed in online court records.

[ Adnan Syed walks out of Baltimore courthouse after judge overturns his 2000 murder conviction ]

Mosby’s office did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday morning, but the state’s attorney is expected to host a press conference at 1 p.m.

After Syed’s conviction was overturned, Lee’s family appealed, arguing Mosby’s office neglected to provide them adequate notice to attend the hearing. The family asked the Maryland Court of Special Appeals to pause the proceedings in Circuit Court while the court considered their appeal.

Just last week, Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh joined Lee’s family in asking the state’s intermediate appellate court to put a hold on Syed’s case in the trial court.

After his office represented the state for Syed’s repeated appeals, Frosh has been critical of Mosby’s recent handling of the case. Frosh cast doubt on the basis city prosecutors presented in support of overturning Syed’s conviction.

It’s unclear what Tuesday’s development means for the family’s appeal.

Frosh declined to comment through a spokesperson, while Lee’s family’s attorney did not return a request for comment.

Lee, 18, was strangled to death and buried in a clandestine grave in Leakin Park. A man discovered her body about three weeks after she was last seen at the high school. At the time, police and prosecutors suspected Syed killed Lee because he was distraught over their breakup.

Syed stood trial in 1999 and 2000. The state’s case relied on witness testimony, cellphone call records and Syed’s own statements; little, if any, physical evidence connected him to the killing. A jury found him guilty of murder, kidnapping, robbery and false imprisonment after the second trial. The judge sentenced him to life plus 30 years in prison.

Arrested at 17, Syed had been behind bars for 23 years before being unshackled and walking out of the Elijah E. Cummings Courthouse last month. He was placed on GPS monitoring pending prosecutors’ decision on how to proceed with his case.

This article will be updated.