Without a word of apology or regret, the district attorney's office yesterday dropped criminal charges against a San Diego Navy man who was falsely accused of raping his own daughter.

Jim, the 37-year-old father, hugged his wife, son and mother after Superior Court Judge Frederic Link formally accepted the recommendation to dismiss the case.

"I'm just extremely pleased," said the emotion-filled father. "It's been a long time coming."

Despite an objection from prosecutors, Link also made a rare factual finding of innocence for Jim, and ordered his arrest records sealed and destroyed.

The dramatic court hearing came after a second round of DNA tests confirmed Thursday that Jim could not have been the man who brutally raped and sodomized his daughter, Alicia. The girl, nearly 11, has been separated from her family since May of 1989.

The hearing brought nearly to a close a 2 1/2 -year nightmare in which Jim faced 16 years in prison for the attack; his wife, Denise, was hospitalized to prevent suicide; and Alicia came within a week of being adopted away forever.

The family estimates they have spent more than $125,000 to defend Jim. Now the family is only weeks away from a final reunification. Alicia, who has been in foster care since the attack, is scheduled to be returned for good Nov. 29, the day after her 11th birthday. Therapists have advised that the family be reunited slowly to minimize emotional trauma. The family's story was chronicled Oct. 20 in The San Diego Union and sparked a community outcry about the county's child-protection system. The county Grand Jury and Juvenile Justice Commission are investigating reports that the system too often pulls kids from their families without justification.

Alicia was raped and sodomized on the night of May 8, 1989, when she was 8. Her injuries were so severe they required surgery.

Alicia told police, social workers and others in authority that a man had come in her bedroom window and carried her outside, "hurt her" and then brought her back.

But investigators didn't believe her story, which she told repeatedly for more than a year. Instead, they accused Jim of committing the attack and took Alicia away from him, Denise and their son Joshua, now age 8. At the time, the family was living in Cabrillo Heights, a Navy complex in Serra Mesa. (The Union has decided not to use the family's last name to protect their daughter's identity.)

Authorities focused on Jim even though they knew another man, Albert Carder Jr., had been convicted of attacking four other girls in Alicia's neighborhood at about the same time -- sometimes after coming through the bedroom window. They also ignored circumstantial evidence, including a footprint, linking Carder to Alicia's attack.

Carder is serving a 25-year prison sentence for the attacks.

In June of 1990, following months of counseling by therapist Kathleen Goodfriend and total isolation from her family, Alicia changed her story and said her father had attacked her. Jim was arrested and his daughter testified against him at his preliminary hearing.

The case abruptly turned around, however, when semen stains -- previously overlooked by police investigators -- were discovered in May on Alicia's panties and nightgown.

DNA tests on those stains, completed last month, concluded that they could not have come from Jim. The test results instead point to Carder. Officials say the 25-year-old molester is among about 5 percent of the population who could match the DNA characteristics found in the semen stains on Alicia's clothing.

Further DNA tests on the stains, which can narrow the sperm source to perhaps one person in a million, are pending.

After the lab results, Alicia's adoption to her foster parents was halted and the Department of Social Services began reuniting the family. But the district attorney's office refused to drop the criminal charges until another round of identical DNA tests was made.

Those results came back Thursday -- with identical results: They cleared Jim. Deputy District Attorney David Rubin then filed a court motion asking that the charges against the father be dismissed.

In court papers and comments both inside and outside the courtroom, however, prosecutors persisted yesterday in claiming they still had questions about the case.

They suggested that their prosecution was due in part to Jim's past alcoholism -- he had stopped drinking six months before the attack -- and what they viewed as his incomplete denials of involvement in the rape. Cathy Stephenson, head of the district attorney's child abuse unit, told a KFMB-TV Channel 8 reporter that Alicia's story about being carried out a window didn't make a whole lot of sense when she told it initially "and still doesn't make a whole lot of sense."

The fact that Carder was convicted of molesting other young girls -- including a 4-year-old girl abducted from her bedroom in another Navy complex five days after Alicia was raped -- was not mentioned.

Said Jim: "It's a last-minute smear shot. What the judge found is I am innocent. There's no evidence against me. What was the point of that?" And while an employee of their office handed out copies of their court motion to the press, the prosecutors offered neither apologies nor pronouncements of Jim's innocence.

"It's not the position of the district attorney to determine if anyone is innocent of a crime," Stephenson said. "We are convinced there is not enough evidence to prove (Jim) guilty beyond a reasonable doubt." That reluctance to let go surprised neither the family nor Jim's attorney, Michael McGlinn.

Except for two people involved in the Juvenile Court end of the case, "no one that I'm aware of has apologized for what they have put this man and his family through for more than two years," McGlinn said. "And that disturbs me a lot."

Denise had similar thoughts. "I think a lot of people should be apologizing to us," Alicia's mother said. "But I don't think it will ever come." That didn't stop the celebrating, however.

"It looked for a long time like (the system) was going to destroy my family, and just keep on going," Jim said, as he exchanged hugs with his family and defense team after the hearing.

He and Denise thanked many San Diegans who have written and sent them money to help with the tens of thousands of dollars they face in legal and other costs.

"I can't believe it yet, that this is happening," added Shirley, Jim's mother, who is visiting San Diego from the family's home in Cabool, Mo. "It was just such a hopeless thing for so long."

Now the family is preparing for Alicia's return.

Library Note: The family's name, Wade, was made public in a story in the Tribune on 16 Nov 91. Names are: James Wade, Jim Wade, Alicia Wade.