By: Maria-Paula 

Keshawn Clarence Duffy, 39, a man who was meant to spend the rest of his life in prison on two sexual abuse convictions in 2019 was recently released from prison after six years. The charges were based on a 13-year-old boy accuser who has since recanted his trial testimony. 

Duffy was initially convicted to two counts of forcible sodomy on his then 11-year-old accuser and sentenced to two consecutive life terms. Virginia law carries mandatory life sentences for forcible sodomy convictions when the victim is younger than 13.  

14 months post the trial in 2020, on March 18 in Hampton, the boy recanted his statement during an evidentiary hearing and stated under oath that Duffy had never sexually assaulted him. However, since recantations are given the benefit of doubt under Virginia law, it took close to four years for the new testimony to be acted upon in a courtroom.  

“I was never sexually assaulted by Keshawn Duffy,” said the teen before Circuit Court Judge William S. Moore Jr., according to court documents. 

Now 18, the teen explained that he felt coerced by his mother who was Duffy’s ex-girlfriend, to testify against Duffy. He said that his mother asked him several times if Duffy had abused him, but his answer was always a no. In addition, he said his mother would get angry when he denied the assault, which eventually drove him to falsely affirm it. 

“She would get mad, and then I’d get scared she was going to beat me or hit me because I kept saying no, so it was just a fear of like my mom that made me finally say yes,” the teen narrated in court. “And then she’d get mad, and then I’d get scared she was going to beat me or hit me because I kept saying no,” the teen testified in March. “So, it was just a fear of like my mom that made me finally say yes.” 

The teen went ahead to testify that although his mother never came out directly and told him to say Duffy abused him, she would insinuate that in different ways. He said as the kid he was, his kid brain picked what he thought his mother wanted him to say.  

Following a temporary detention order in June 2020, the teens mother was committed to mental health treatment leading the teen and his younger brothers into foster care. 

Virginia Attorney General’s Office on the other hand said it’s convinced the teen lied at trial and is now telling the truth. In April, the office joined Duffy’s innocence petition which is now pending with the Virginia Court of Appeal.  

A ruling from the Court of Appeal still questioning Duffy’s ruling is months away despite a call for his release from prison pending the appellate court ruling. 

After his release, Duffy expressed gratitude towards God, his family and his legal team as he walked out of the Hampton Jail Annex along Pembroke Avenue.  

“I just want to thank God first and foremost and thank my family for sticking beside me. I thank my lawyer, David Hargett, and his team for getting this done and the Attorney General for being willing to listen to the truth. And I’m just ready to get on with life,” Duffy said.  

Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares and Jeremy J. Key, special assistant to the Attorney general, agreed in different statements to the Commonweath’s concession that the recantation is material and that “no rational trier of fact would find proof of Mr. Duffy’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt. 

In a statement, Virginia Attorney General Miyares said: 

“A free and just society owns up to its wrongdoings and has steps to correct them. Virginia’s writ of actual innocence process is intended to right those wrongs. It’s never too late to deliver justice, and I’m proud to stand alongside Keshawn Duffy in his fight for his innocence.”