Hey, Can A Woman "Ask To Get Raped"?

Posted on Wed, Sep. 15, 2010
Victims' testimony at congressional hearing show "chronic failure" in rape investigations
By Michael Matza
Inquirer Staff Writer

WASHINGTON - Holding a gun to Sarah Reedy's head, her attacker demanded oral sex.
The Pennsylvania woman, 19 at the time, was working the late shift at a gas station near Pittsburgh in 2004. She survived the assault - then had to endure the skepticism of a local police detective after she called 911.

Instead of believing her, the officer assumed she had robbed the station and fabricated the rape as a cover-up, she testified during a congressional hearing Tuesday.

Chaired by Sen. Arlen Specter (D., Pa.), the session was convened to explore what Specter and a dozen witnesses - including Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey, Carol E. Tracy of the Women's Law Project of Philadelphia, and Villanova University law professor Michelle Dempsey - called "the chronic failure" of law enforcement to thoroughly investigate rapes.

Tracy explained that Philadelphia police had severely underreported rapes for decades through the 1990s, a problem brought to light by Inquirer investigative reporting, she said. In response to the problem, then-Police Commissioner John F. Timoney allowed Tracy's group to annually audit the performance of the Special Victims Unit, a practice that has continued under Ramsey.

Ramsey heads the Police Executive Research Forum, a law enforcement association dedicated to sharing best practices. He said Tuesday that he will call "a summit" on sexual assault in the coming year and urge other departments to work with advocacy groups in their jurisdictions to adopt the type of auditing arrangement that Philadelphia police have with the Women's Law Project.

Specter said he scheduled the hearing of a subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee at the urging of Tracy, who had become aware of chronic underreporting in Baltimore, New York, St. Louis, New Orleans, Cleveland, and several other cities. The Judiciary Committee oversees the FBI.

Tracy and several other witnesses said it was well past time for the FBI, which oversees the reporting of crime through the Uniform Crime Report (UCR), to update the definition of rape. Since the 1920s, it has been considered to be forcible carnal knowledge of a female by a male - a definition that, Dempsey said, is "archaic, old-fashioned, insulting."

Several witnesses said the current definition of rape fails to consider penetration by body parts other than the penis or by foreign objects, anal and oral rape, and homosexual rape. The witnesses also said the illustrations in the UCR handbook provide poor guidance on such issues as acquaintance rape and violence against an intimate partner.

Tracy said that in September 2001, her group wrote to the FBI asking for a review of the definition of rape, but the FBI never replied.

"I am sorry that the FBI has not responded to your letter," Specter said with his trademark drawl. "I will let you know when they respond to mine."

The remark drew a chuckle from the audience of 100.

While the advocates' testimony was finely focused, the stories of the two rape survivors on the panel struck the strongest chords.

Continuing her testimony, Reedy said another woman was assaulted near the site of her 2004 attack about two months later.

"This woman gave almost the same description [of the attacker] . . . and his M.O.," but the detective "was unable or just refused to make the connection," said Reedy. Instead, he subsequently charged Reedy with theft because he didn't believe she was telling the truth about her own attack.

While awaiting trial, she contacted a state crime tip line and said she thought she had been attacked by the same man they were seeking in the second incident.

Almost a year passed before a man was caught in the act of sexually assaulting another attendant at a nearby gas station. After his arrest he confessed to a dozen sexual assaults, including Reedy's.

Sen. Al Franken (D., Minn.) had just one question: Was that detective still on the force?

Reedy said he was.

"That to me," said Franken, "is pretty amazing."
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/pa/20100915_Victims__testimony_at_congressional_hearing_show__quot_chronic_failure_quot__in_rape_investigations.html

http://crime.about.com/od/serial/p/lobez.htm

'I Will Be Happy to Kill Again - It Is My Mission' : Lopez never showed remorse for his crimes. In a prison interview with journalist Ron Laytner, he said if he ever got out of prison he would happily return to killing young children. The pleasure he received from his demented acts of murder overpowered any sense of right from wrong and he admittedly looked forward to the opportunity to wrap his hands around the throat of his next child.

One Child's Life Equals One Month In Prison: No one was concerned that Lopez would have the opportunity to kill again. If he was paroled from the prison in Ecuador he would still have to stand trial for his murders in Colombia and Peru. But after 20 years of solitary confinement, in the summer of 1998, Lopez was taken in the middle of the night to the Colombia border and released. Neither Colombia or Peru had the money to bring the madman to justice.

The Monster of the Andes Is Free: What ever happened to The Monster of the Andes is unknown. Many suspect and hope that one of the many bounties offered for his death eventually paid off and that he is dead. If Lopez has escaped his enemies and is still alive there is little doubt that he has returned to his old ways.

Rapist of two Tulane students gets 45 years in prison, deportation order
September 15, 2010,
Gwen Filosa, The Times-Picayune

The man who raped two Tulane University students in the fall of 2008 was sentenced to 45 years in prison Wednesday, and the judge ordered that he face deportation when he's released.

Victor Ivan Perez Gonzalez, 30, a Nicaraguan who had lived in New Orleans for about six years and worked as a house painter, admitted in court to raping both women and kidnapping one of them during the separate sidewalk attacks

"Parents send their children to college with the expectation that they will be safe and free from predators such as you," Judge Camille Buras told Gonzalez at Criminal District Court on Wednesday.

The two women made statements before Buras rendered a sentence. The women were spared the ordeal of a trial when their attacker decided to take a plea deal offered by prosecutors.


Awaiting trial on charges of aggravated rape, which carry a mandatory life sentence upon conviction, and knowing that witnesses were ready to identify him as the rapist of an 18-year-old woman, Gonzalez took the deal offered by prosecutors on Monday.

He pleaded guilty to two counts of forcible rape and one count of second-degree kidnapping.

That deal included Gonzalez agreeing to deportation once he finishes the 45 years. He cannot earn any benefit of probation, parole or suspension of a single day, because he is now a "violent offender" under Louisiana law.

Gonzalez hasn't left jail since the night of the Oct 19, 2008, rape of the 18-year-old in the 7000 block of Freret Street. As the woman walked alone on the sidewalk, Gonzalez dragged her to a secluded spot and raped her twice.

Two Tulane students who came to the woman's aid followed a fleeing Gonzalez, got his license plate number and directed police officers to his dark-green sport utility vehicle less than an hour after the rape.

A month earlier, on Sept. 28, 2008, Gonzalez raped a 19-year-old woman in the same block of Freret Street.

Prosecutors in 2008 argued that Gonzalez, who is not a U.S. citizen, has a valid passport and presented a flight risk if allowed any bond.

In February 2009, when his public defenders asked Judge Buras to allow Gonzalez a bond, she replied by setting it at $15 million, which kept him in Orleans Parish Prison.

Gonzalez told police from the start that he had been involved in another rape a month before the Oct. 19 attack.
http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2010/09/rapist_of_two_tulane_students.html

Prosecutors will seek harshest punishment for accused Provo rapist
September 15th, 2010

PROVO -- The man accused in the brutal attack of a Utah Valley University student near the Provo River Trail in June faced a judge Wednesday morning.
say they will seek the harshest punishment possible for Shawn Leonard. He is accused of beating, raping and leaving the 19-year-old woman for dead.

At Wednesday's hearing, Leonard's defense team asked the judge for more time to prepare. It's something prosecutors didn't object to.

Prosecutor Donna Kelly said her team prefers to have the case pushed back because the victim does want to testify. Recently, though, she has been going through numerous surgeries and it's still hard to understand her when she talks because she has difficulty opening her jaw.

"I'm hopeful that by the time this gets set for a preliminary hearing you'll be able to understand her when she speaks," Kelly said.

Leonard faces charges of attempted aggravated murder, aggravated sexual assault and aggravated kidnapping. Police say he attempted to strangle the woman with a cord, raped her and then attacked her with a cinder block.

The woman regained consciousness sometime later and crawled to the trail where she was rescued. She suffered terrible injuries to her head, neck and face.

Prosecutors said they won't offer Leonard any type of a plea deal.

"We think life without parole is the appropriate sentence for these crimes, and so we're unwilling to make an offer that involves anything less than that," Kelly said.

Leonard also faces an aggravated robbery charge for allegedly holding up a clerk at a store in the Provo Riverwoods shopping center right after the rape and attempted murder.

Both incidents happened after Leonard walked away from a work release program at the Utah County Jail, where he was serving time for felony theft.

Prosecutors are also asking that Leonard's probation be revoked in that case and that he be sent to prison for violating probation. The judge will consider that when Leonard returns to court on Oct. 6.

Meanwhile, some good news in the recovery of the victim is that her vision is returning and improving beyond what was expected.
http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=148&sid=12437633

DNA Evidence Clears Two Men Who Served 30 Years Each For Rape
Judge Tosses Guilty Pleas, But Third Man Already Died In Mississippi Prison
By MARK SCHONE
Sept. 16, 2010 —

A judge in Hattiesburg, Mississippi today threw out the guilty pleas of two men who had spent three decades in prison for rape and murder after DNA tests showed they were innocent. The decision comes too late, however, for a third man who died in prison eight years ago.

Bobby Dixon, Phillip Bivens and Larry Ruffin were sentenced to life in prison for the rape and murder of Eva Gail Patterson of Hattiesburg in 1979. Larry Ruffin died behind bars in 2002.

The Innocence Project filed a petition in July on behalf of Dixon and Bivens and a separate petition on behalf of Ruffin just yesterday. The advocacy group had lobbied for new DNA tests of the evidence from the 1979 rape, and tests showed that the DNA matched that of another man Andrew Harris, who is currently serving a life sentence in a Mississippi prison for a 1981 rape.

Bobby Dixon was released from prison last month in order to undergo treatment for terminal cancer, but Bivens remained behind bars.

"It was a good result in a tragic situation," said Emily Maw, director of the Innocence Project New Orleans and lawyer for Dixon, Bivens and the Ruffin family. "This is a particularly sad case. Another man committed the crime and then let these men sit in prison for 30 years. We hope it will have an impact on how we look at confessions and guilty pleas."

Dixon and Bivens had pleaded guilty to the crime and claimed that Ruffin was the rapist. Dixon claimed in an interview with the Jackson Clarion-Ledger that he fingered Ruffin after police beat him. Ruffin insisted on taking his case to trial continued to maintain his innocence until his death in a prison accident.

Judge Robert Helfrich said he did not rule on Ruffin's petition because it was received Wednesday and he had not had time to review it. Maw said that she expects the petition for Ruffin's posthumous exoneration will not be taken up until a grand jury has decided whether to charge Andrew Harris with Patterson's rape and murder.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/dna-evidence-clears-men-served-30-years-rape/story?id=11654532

Man faces another life term, 2007 rape in Frisco
Sept. 16, 2010

McKINNEY, Texas — A convicted rapist faces another possible life prison term over a 2007 attack in which a Frisco woman was forced to perform a sex act and was stabbed.

A jury in McKinney on Thursday convicted 32-year-old Stanley Vernell Ledbetter Jr. of sexual assault.

The Dallas Morning News reports the victim cried as the verdict was read.

Defense attorney Robbie McClung said the woman could not identify Ledbetter in a photo lineup.

Prosecutors say DNA evidence and cell phone records help lead to conviction of the former tax preparer.

Ledbetter in March was convicted and sentenced to life in prison over a 2005 sexual assault in Irving. Ledbetter last October also was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of aggravated sexual assault with a deadly weapon for a 2006 attack on a Dallas woman.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/7203849.html