Two men have been charged with sexual assault on Hawaii island following a statewide effort to test hundreds of rape kits that for years sat unprocessed in county storage facilities. Hawaii County prosecutors have passed a third sexual assault case on to the state Attorney General’s Office due to an unspecified conflict of interest, according to 1st Deputy Prosecutor Dale Ross.

It wasn’t immediately clear if the charges stemmed from new DNA evidence or other leads that arose during a fresh review of sexual assault cases that involved rape kits that were recently tested.

Dutchie Lono Kaluna was charged this month with several counts of first degree sexual assault and kidnapping for allegedly raping a teenage girl in December 2013, according to a grand jury indictment. The kidnapping charge stems from allegations that he restrained the girl “with intent to inflict bodily injury.”

Samuel Sniffen was charged in September with second degree sexual assault for allegedly assaulting a woman in May 2016.

Kaluna is in custody at the Oahu Community Correctional Center and Sniffen at the Hawaii Community Correctional Center.

Only 13% of rape kits dating back to the 1990s had ever been tested by county law enforcement agencies, according to an inventory completed by the county police departments toward the end of 2016. On Hawaii island, police had tested just 60 out of the 369 rape kits that had been submitted into evidence between 2001 and June 30, 2016.

The kits contain forensic evidence, such as swabs of bodily fluid and hair, collected from the bodies of victims. When tested, the results are usually uploaded into a national database containing DNA profiles contributed by forensic labs throughout the country that can help identify potential perpetrators.

Hawaii island police identified 189 rape kits out of the inventory that should have been tested, and sent them out to labs.

Following the testing, the prosecutor’s office hired an investigator and cold case analyst to review all 189 cases, regardless of whether the testing resulted in new DNA evidence.

Ross didn’t respond to an interview request on Tuesday seeking additional information about the cases in which charges have been brought. But she indicated by email that her office was embarking on a more aggressive effort to investigate sexual assault cases aided by federal grant money it was awarded in October.

Those funds will be used to pursue investigations and prosecution of all cases arising from rape kits collected through mid-2018.

“One of the challenges we found was that it was difficult to get the resources for these cases when current caseloads continued to grow,” said Ross by email.

Cities throughout the country in recent years have been aggressively testing rape kits that previously went ignored by law enforcement. The results have helped police and prosecutors solve individual cases, identify serial rapists, close cold cases and catch criminals who have moved across state lines.