A central Connecticut man who spent 12 years in prison for two rapes—that now even the state says he didn’t commit—has been awarded $6.9 million, thanks to DNA testing that exonerated him.

Plaintiffs counsel Rosemarie Paine of Jacobs & Dow in New Haven said DNA results were made public in 2014 and cleared her client, Luis Figueroa. But those 12 years he spent behind bars, plus five more on probation during which he had to enlist in mandated sex offender programs, “turned his life upside down,” she said.