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Rape -- a numbers game

By Bob Weir

Published: Friday, October 5, 2012 4:36 PM CDT

It happened sometime during the summer of 1975. I was working plainclothes duty out of the 105 Precinct in Queens, New York. My partner and I responded to a call of, "Cries for help," in an apartment building. When we pulled up on the scene, we saw a young woman climbing down a fire escape, screaming hysterically. Her clothes were torn and bloody, and she had cuts and bruises on her arms and legs. She told us she had been beaten, raped, and sodomized by a man she met in a bar the previous night. Although she had accompanied him to his apartment, she alleged that he had held her against her will and violated her several times. When he fell asleep, she locked the bathroom door, broke the window, and squeezed through to the fire escape. I arrested the guy and arraigned him in Queens Criminal Court.

A few days later, the case was on the docket for a preliminary hearing. I had my facts in order, my evidence vouchers in hand, and the complainant in the courtroom. Before the case was called, I was summoned to the office of the Assistant District Attorney (ADA) in charge of the Sex Crimes Unit. I was ushered into her office by a NYC police lieutenant assigned to her as a liaison. He stood in the corner of the room like a sentinel as she intermittently read the arrest report and looked over her glasses at me. She was the first person to take charge of this new unit, which was specifically designed to be a tough enforcement arm of the justice system; assuring that sexually victimized women would have a strong voice in the courtroom. After reading the documents, she began writing on a yellow pad as she spoke to me without looking up.

"I'm going to reduce this from first degree rape, to unlawful imprisonment and simple assault," she said matter-of-factly. "The defendant will agree to the reduction and he will accept the appropriate sentence." The shock on my face must have resonated with her because she stopped writing and sat back on her recliner. "You don't have a problem with that, do you, officer?" she said with more than a hint of intimidation in her voice. I told her that I not only had a problem with it but that I would refuse to go along with it in court. I knew, as did she, that the judge always asked for the arresting officer's consent when a reduction was requested. With a disdainful frown on her face, she looked toward the lieutenant and nodded. He asked me to accompany him to a nearby room where he proceeded to "pull rank" in order to get me to comply with the ADA. Since I had one of the highest rates of arrests and convictions in my precinct, which provided me with the undying gratitude of my commanding officer, I told him what he could do with his rank. In addition, I told him if the ADA even tried to have the charge reduced, I would pursue an interview with a newspaper and expose the sham being perpetrated upon the public by the highly publicized new unit and its politically ambitious prosecutor.

In fact, the ADA didn't want to take a chance on losing any cases by going to trial. She knew that every reduced charge conviction was still a win on her record. That's the numbers game being played by those in the so-called "justice system." A deal is made between the defense attorney and the prosecutor to give both of them a victory. Defense counsel gets the charge reduced (his client is satisfied) and the ADA gets a conviction (on paper it looks like a victory for the people). Meanwhile, the victim is merely a pathetic pawn in a corrupt numbers game, whose players are less interested in justice than in scoring a win on their respective records.

I forced the case to trial, and the defendant was convicted on all charges. The victory was bittersweet, because although I had vindicated myself and justice had prevailed, the ADA ended up with a win on a felony count, instead of the misdemeanor she had bargained for. Soon, she ran for and was elected District Attorney of Queens County. Her propaganda machine extolled her virtues as a "fierce proponent of law and order, and protector women's rights." I couldn't help laughing when I saw the posters of her stating that she would fight for her sisters against the male dominated hierarchy. But I didn't receive true satisfaction until she ran for vice-president in 1984. President Reagan and VP, George Bush, won a landslide victory over Walter Mondale and his "crime fighting, women's liberationist" running mate, Geraldine Ferraro. I began to believe there really was justice in the world.

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