Facts: - caption: juan rivera - birth name: juan a. rivera , jr. - birth date: 31 october 1972 - name: juan rivera - image: file : juan_a_rivera . png - birth place: puerto rico Based on these bullet points, write a short biography describing the life of juan rivera -lrb- wrongful conviction -rrb- .
A:
juan a. rivera , jr. -lrb- born october 31 , 1972 -rrb- is an american man who was wrongfully convicted three times for the 1992 rape and murder of 11-year-old holly staker in waukegan , illinois .he was convicted twice on the basis of a confession , one that he claims was coerced .no physical evidence linked him to the crime scene .dna testing done in 2004 on semen taken from the crime scene ruled out rivera as the source ; however , the prosecution argued that the semen sample came from previous consensual sex with another man , and rivera was convicted a third time .his conviction was overturned by the appellate court , which took the unusual step of barring prosecutors from retrying rivera , and he was released .after his release , rivera 's attorneys asked the courts to order genetic testing on rivera 's shoes , which the prosecution had tried to enter into evidence in 1993 .the shoes had staker 's blood on them , but the prosecution withdrew the evidence prior to rivera 's first trial when it was discovered that the shoes were not available for sale anywhere in the united states until after the murder .dna testing conducted on the shoes in 2015 indicated that the blood indeed belonged to staker , but also contained another genetic sample -- one that matched the semen sample .rivera 's defense team insists that this is proof not only that the blood was planted , but that the real killer 's dna was inadvertently planted as well .the dna has yet to be matched to an individual , but has been linked to dna from another home invasion and murder .the man convicted of that crime also claims he was wrongfully convicted .following his exoneration , rivera was awarded $ 20 million , the largest wrongful conviction settlement in united states history , including $ 2 million from john e. reid & associates , who are known for the reid technique of questioning suspects .the technique has been widely criticized for its history of eliciting confessions that were later determined to be false .rivera was...