An Elizabethtown man walked out of Lancaster County Courthouse a free man Tuesday after spending the last six years locked away for two sexual assaults another man recently admitted committing.

A jury had convicted Charles "Ted" Dubbs of sexually assaulting two women in 2000 and 2001 along Lancaster County jogging trails. A judge sentenced him to up to 40 years in state prison.

Judge David Ashworth freed Dubbs after an emergency hearing Tuesday afternoon.

The judge made his decision because a convicted serial rapist from Dauphin County, Wilbur C. Brown II, made a detailed confession that cast enough doubt on Dubbs' conviction to warrant a new trial.

District Attorney Donald Totaro, however, will not seek a new trial because the two victims can no longer positively identify Dubbs as their attacker, like they did during his trial.

Dubbs and Brown have similar appearances, particularly their mustachioed faces and short, dark, parted hair.

"Doubt has been raised in the minds of the victims, and for that reason, we could not proceed," Totaro said. "We tried to make it very clear to them that they did nothing wrong in this case. They based their identification of their perpetrator … on what they saw at that time. This was no doubt traumatic for both of them."

Dubbs left the county courthouse after trading in his green prison garb for jeans, white sneakers and a flannel shirt.

He showed no emotion in the courtroom when the judge ordered him freed. He had no family or friends in the courtroom, and he never looked at prosecutors.

He departed with a woman identified as his girlfriend. Neither spoke to the media.

"I told him not to talk," said Dubbs' court-appointed attorney, Vincent Quinn. "It would be in bad form. He's obviously crying, and he's emotional."

Heidi Eakin, the assistant district attorney who prosecuted Dubbs and won the convictions against him in 2002, said Tuesday that she had been "tortured" by the thought that she had helped send the wrong man to prison.

"This is every prosecutor's worst nightmare," said Eakin, who is now retired. "You do your job the best you can, but other factors come into play beyond your control."

Brown's attorney, Diane Morgan of Harrisburg, could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday.

Brown will not be prosecuted for the assaults because the five-year statute of limitations on the crimes has expired.

He is, however, already serving 50 to 100 years in state prison for more than a dozen assaults against women across Pennsylvania.

Totaro and Eakin emphasized Tuesday that Dubbs' release from prison does not necessarily mean he is innocent of the attacks.

"We don't have DNA or other physical evidence that would determine someone was actually innocent," Totaro said. "What we have is the confession of Mr. Brown and doubt in the minds of the victims."

Tuesday's events marked the conclusion of an extensive investigation by Totaro's office into whether a confession Brown made in November 2006 was credible.

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The attacks on the two women happened on June 5, 2000, and June 26, 2001. The first took place place in East Hempfield Township along Lancaster Junction Recreation Trail, and the second occurred along Conewago Trail in Mount Joy Township. The second assault happened while the woman was pushing a stroller with her young son inside.

Each crime featured similar circumstances. The mustachioed attacker wore dark aviator sunglasses, used similar words when molesting the women, exposed himself and forced the women to sexually touch him. Both attacks happened along jogging trails near Route 283 during the daytime.

Both victims identified Dubbs through a photographic lineup and later in court. Dubbs has a criminal history of sexual misconduct.

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According to a court document released Tuesday, Eakin in 2005 took information about the two assaults to a statewide task force formed because a serial rapist had been assaulting women in six counties, including Lancaster. The assaults were similar in nature and detail to those Dubbs had been convicted of committing.

"It tortured me for a long time, wondering" if the right man was behind bars, Eakin said.

Brown was arrested in August 2005 in Jefferson County and initially denied committing the two assaults, even when Dauphin County prosecutors took him to the East Hempfield crime scene, according to the court document.

Brown, however, in November 2006 attempted to reach a plea agreement with Dauphin County prosecutors, offering information about the Lancaster assaults in exchange for a chance at parole. The Dauphin County district attorney refused the deal, but Brown confessed to the crimes anyway.

As he put it in his confession, Brown wanted to make "peace … because I got to stand before the maker some day, and I can't lie to him."

Totaro said Eakin's efforts with the task force contributed to Brown's confession.

Totaro said Brown would not have confessed if Dubbs hadn't been convicted of the attacks. He said Brown became aware of the convictions when investigators questioned him about information Eakin supplied to the task force.

Brown's confession prompted Dubbs to petition for a new trial.

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Dubbs won his freedom because of three significant developments: a two-hour videotaped interview between Lancaster County investigators and Brown; a 2005 note written by Brown; and expressions of doubt voiced by the victims after they watched Brown's taped interview.

Earlier this year, Lancaster County Detective Joseph Geesey and assistant District Attorney Kelly Sekula led an investigation into Brown's confession, which was rife with inaccuracies about the crimes, according to court documents.

However, during a Sept. 5 interview with Brown, he revealed details about the case only the victims and the perpetrator would have known.

Details included the physical appearance of the victims, descriptions of the stroller pushed by the second victim and intimate details about each attack.

It had already been determined that Dubbs and Brown could not have shared information because neither served time in the same prison.

Totaro attributed Brown's improved memory to Geesey's interview technique and the extensive knowledge he had of the crimes compared to Dauphin County's investigators.

Both victims viewed the videotape separately — one Friday and the other Monday — and both said afterward they were unsure whether Dubbs was their attacker.

Also coming to light within the last week was a note, postmarked Oct. 21, 2005, Brown wrote to his mother just after his arrest. The letter had remained sealed because Brown instructed his mother to not open it "unless I'm dead" and then to call state police.

Brown agreed on Sept. 5 to have the letter opened by investigators, who read it five days later. In the letter, he addressed a state police investigator, telling him he had committed the two assaults.

"If someone else got the blame, I'm truly sorry," he wrote, according to the letter.

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After Dubbs' release, Eakin said she has peace of mind.

"I'm a human being," she said. "I had the facts that I had. Hindsight is 20/20. It's not clear that anybody knows what really happened."

Both Eakin and Totaro are on the ballot for the six county judgeships up for election on Nov. 6, Eakin as a Democratic nominee and Totaro as a Republican.

Both said they did not expect the Dubbs case to have any bearing on their chances of being elected.

"That's completely irrelevant," Totaro said. "What we did here had absolutely nothing to do with politics."

It's not clear whether Dubbs will pursue a civil case against prosecutors. Quinn said he was not an expert on such matters and could not advise Dubbs.

E-mail: dpidgeon@lnpnews.com