DNA didn’t match, charges dropped, but rape case haunts Superior youth

Story here. Excerpt:

'A typical day for Andrew Lawrence seems to be a pretty simple one. The 18-year-old said it usually consists of him sleeping until the early afternoon, playing video games at his apartment, and then going to work as a cook at a Superior restaurant. About once or twice a week, he goes to visit his parents about a mile away and do laundry.

It’s a far cry from his life just over a year ago, when he was facing charges that in July 2010 he broke into a Superior woman’s home, held a weapon to her throat, and raped her.

Those charges were dropped by the Douglas County Attorney’s office on Dec. 11, 2010, after DNA evidence found at the woman’s house didn’t match Lawrence.
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A year after the charges were dropped, Lawrence said he still thinks often about the case and worries about how it could affect his future. Though the charges have been dropped, the accusation is still on his record.

“I still get depressed,” he said. “I probably won’t be able to get a good job or go to college. My senior year was messed up. I don’t have any grades for my senior year because I had off-campus schooling. That doesn’t look good for college.”

His stepmother, Rita Bergstrom, is more blunt in her assessment of Lawrence’s future.

“The kid is screwed,” she said. “He’ll be stuck doing manual labor jobs for the rest of his life. What the police basically said was, ‘We can’t prove you did it, but we’re keeping our eye on you.’”'