         
To
add your name to the SATI Mailing List,
click here
|
|
SATI e-News:
December 11, 2002
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
Florida
Rape Victim Sues City in Handling of Rape Case |
|
|
|
|
|
A woman who was raped twice within a
month's time sued the city of New Port Richey, Florida, alleging
that police doubted her accounts of the assaults and failed to
properly investigate the cases, according to the St.
Petersburg Times. Just two months before the first attack,
the perpetrator, John Anthony Casteel, was released from a
14-year sentence for charges that included sexual battery.
The lawsuit names the city, as well as the department's chief
detective, Jackie Pehote, and the lead detective investigating
the first rape, William Barrus, claiming negligence and
intentional infliction of emotional distress.
The perpetrator first broke into the victim's home on December
5, 1998 and attacked the 41 year-old victim while she was
asleep. According to the Times, the victim's eye was
swollen shut and her mouth bloody with 15 broken teeth. The
victim says that police did not believe that she had been
brutally beaten, bound, gagged and raped at knifepoint by a
stranger.
The Times reported that four days after the first attack,
the case records reflect that Pehote told the woman she didn't
believe her. The woman alleges in the lawsuit that Pehote shared
her doubts with the victim's friends, even asking them to
encourage the woman to "tell the truth" to detectives. Two weeks
after the assault the investigation was declared inactive.
The victim installed a burglar alarm in her home. Less than a
month after the first assault, her alarm was triggered. Port
Richey dispatched police to her home, but they did not go
inside. Minutes later, prosecutors say, the rapist struck again.
The victim claims that police doubted the second assault as
well, and says that Pehote asked her, "How could you be so
stupid to move back into your house?" Pehote denies having made
that statement.
A review of public documents by the Times shows that
police still did little to investigate the case. It was not
until the victim spotted her assailant in a convenience store
four months later that any action was taken. A jury deliberated
one hour before convicting Casteel in August 2001, and he is now
serving a life sentence.
In a news report from the time Casteel was arrested (May 23,
1999), Barrus is quoted as saying, "We received some information
about this guy, and we started looking at this guy, and
everything fell together real nice." An internal investigation
later cleared Pehote of any wrongdoing, but faulted Barrus for
failing to submit the semen sample in a timely fashion.
Casteel's DNA had been in a state database since 1996.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages in excess of $15,000.
Civil suits against government agancies in Florida are capped at
$100,000, unless the Legislature passes a special appropriations
bill for a larger award.
"Victim Sues in Handling of Rape," St. Petersburg Times,
November 19, 2002.
"Man Charged With Raping Woman Twice," St. Petersburg Times,
May 23, 1999. |
|
|
|
|
|
> Other Articles in This Issue: |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
