Florida ? Alan Crotzer stepped into the warm sunlight outside the courthouse in Tampa on Monday and raised his arms to the sky, celebrating his freedom after more than 24 years behind bars for crimes he didn’t commit.

A judge freed the 45-year-old Crotzer after DNA testing and other evidence convinced prosecutors he was not involved in the 1981 armed robbery and rapes that led to his 130-year prison sentence.

“It’s been a long time coming,” said Crotzer, his black hair graying at the temples. “Thank God for this day.”

Crotzer walked free more than three years after he wrote to the Innocence Project in New York, a legal clinic that seeks to exonerate inmates through DNA testing.

“Are you ready for what you waited so long to hear?” Circuit Judge J. Rogers Padgett said to Crotzer during the brief hearing. “Motion granted – you’re a free man.”