“She lied on the witness stand,” Kipman countered. “If she didn’t tell the truth when asked that question about even knowing Rashad, what makes you believe that she was telling the truth about whether the sex was consensual? Why would you simply dismiss the statements of the two roommates, who in separate interviews stated that she’d told them that she was going to get back at him because he didn’t want to be her boyfriend?”
“Typical male response!” Rachman shouted. “The woman’s a whore so she doesn’t deserve our protection.” She turned to Karp. “I plan to refile the charges and this time put those two rapists in prison where they belong for ten to fifteen.”
Kipman also looked at Karp. “I don’t believe that best serves the interests of justice in this case. ‘Full disclosure’ has long been the policy of this office, even when doing so may make our job harder. We should have turned the police interviews over to the defense, and then argued their relevance in front of the trial judge at a hearing. But this was not done and instead, Ms. Rachman took it upon herself to rule on its relevance and then hide the existence of these interviews. In the meantime, the lives of these two young men have been irrevocably damaged—they were expelled from the university, even before the trial and without a hearing, lost their basketball scholarships, and I doubt will find any other takers out there, even if we don’t pursue another trial….”
“Poor babies,” Rachman sneered. “They won’t get paid to play a game while the victim—”
“Complainant; she’s not a victim if the charges haven’t been proved,” Kipman interjected.
“…the victim,” Rachman continued, “has to defend herself from being called a whore by the people who are supposed to protect her.”
“She’s certainly a liar,” Kipman retorted. “So if one follows the other…”
Rachman turned almost purple with rage. “See! See!” she shouted. “This office is a reflection of the same old Neanderthal thinking—”
“As I was saying,” Kipman said, “lives have been ruined here on what may have been nothing more than a jilted woman’s revenge. The coach of the team was placed on administrative leave, essentially labeled a pimp by the press because he was somehow supposed to monitor what his players were doing off-campus, and then, when the shit hit the fan, defended these two young men by telling the press that he believed them and not the complainant.”
“Just more evidence of the good ol’ boys club, which as we all know has plenty of members in this room,” Rachman added bitterly. “The only concern is whether two rapists have lost their scholarship and a coach his job because the university did the right thing and supported this young woman.”
“We have an obligation to present the truth, and not grind our little personal axes,” Kipman fired back. “It’s my recommendation that we dismiss the charges. We have a witness who has shown that the complainant will perjure herself while under oath. I believe these young men have already suffered enormously for what appears to be nothing more than promiscuous behavior.”
Rachman’s eyes nearly bugged out of her head at the last remark and she looked as if she might rush down the length of the table to strike Kipman. Karp decided it was time to put an end to the rancor. “Enough!” he said in a voice loud enough to silence both attorneys. “I think it’s time to cool off. Let’s take a look again at ALL the evidence and, when we can discuss this without the personal invective, we’ll decide whether to refile the charges.”
Kipman nodded and Rachman took her seat. “So, Rachel,” Karp said as if it was time to turn the channel on a television, “tell us about the Michalik case.”
Rachman looked up at him with a frown and then quickly at Kipman as if she expected this to be a trick. Seeing no indication that Karp’s query was anything more than it was, she shrugged and said, “Pretty straightforward case of sexual assault by a person in a position of trust…sort of like the priest cases.
“The victim”—Rachman glanced at Kipman, who seemed to be absorbed in reading through one of his files and did not challenge her use of the word—“Sarah Ryder, is a graduate student at the NYU school of Russian studies. The perp, Alexis Michalik, is a professor of Russian poetry and here on a work visa. Over a period of several weeks, he engaged in a pattern of flirtation clearly meant to seduce Ms. Ryder, until she finally asked him to stop. He seemed to get the message, so she felt comfortable calling to ask him to help her with her master’s thesis. He told her that he could meet with her after hours at his office on the campus. Upon her arrival, he offered her a beer, which she recalls had a ‘funny taste’ but at the time made nothing of it. The next thing she remembers is that she’s been bound over a couch, her wrists tied to the legs of the furniture, and Michalik is engaging in anal intercourse with her.”
Rachman paused as though to calm herself. “When he was finished, he told her that he loved her, but that if she told anyone, he would deny it and make sure that she was drummed out of the department and the university—that all her hard work would go down the drain. The victim reported the incident to the university, which, as required by law, reported it to the New York Police Department. She was transported to a hospital, where she was examined by a doctor, who reported that she had ‘lacerations and contusions to both her vagina and anal area consistent with forced sexual intercourse.’”
Rachman sifted through the papers in her file and held up one. “We’ve just received the results of DNA testing of a semen stain found on the victim’s blouse; it’s a match for Michalik. Also, finger-prints found on a half-empty glass of beer discovered by investigators match those of Michalik and Ms. Ryder. The beer was tested and shows traces of rohypnol, the so-called date rape drug.”
Satisfied, Rachman stopped talking. Karp asked, “Questions?” It had been the practice since the days of Garrahy for those who attended that meeting to put their fellow prosecutors through an interrogation meant to discover any weaknesses in a case that a defense lawyer might later exploit. The practice had pretty much disappeared under Bloom, who couldn’t have cared less, and had been at best desultory under Keegan, who was occupied with his own political aspirations. But the practice was renewed with vigor when Karp was appointed.
“Anything to place Michalik and Ms. Ryder in the building at the time in question?” one of the young assistant chiefs asked.
Rachman smiled like a student at a geography bee who just got asked her favorite question. “As a matter of fact, a witness—one Ted Vanders, a graduate student in the English department—came forward after the story appeared in the newspapers and told the police that he saw the victim as she was leaving the building that night.” Rachman put on a show of again rifling through her papers before finding what she sought and began to read.
“Let’s see…ah yes, here it is, ‘He told the police that when he saw the victim about midnight, she appeared “disheveled and in tears” and that ‘only after coaxing did the victim tell him she’d been raped.’”
“Did the witness know her previously?” asked another of the assistant district attorneys, probably to prove that he’d been paying attention to the previous discussion.
Rachman shook her head. “No, they’re not even in the same department. And…,” she said, pausing to look at Kipman, “the police interviewed her friends and acquaintances, and none have ever seen or heard of Mr. Vanders. In fact, he’s something of a geek, if I may use that term, with no known girlfriends. But if you saw Ms. Ryder, you’d realize that he’s not remotely her type. A real beauty, in other words, and knows it.”
“There’s semen on the blouse?” another ADA asked and chuckled self-consciously. “Will he make a Bill Clinton defense and say he ‘never had sex with that woman’?”
Rachman laughed just as falsely. “I guess there’s a similarity. We believe this asshole wiped himself off on her blouse when he was finished.”
“But no semen found in her?”
“The victim reported that the perp used a condom.”
“W
hat’s the perp, this Michalik, say?”
Rachman looked disgusted. “Oh, the usual. It was her fault. She started the flirting—as if a twenty-five-year-old college coed has this irresistible power over an admittedly handsome, forty-five-year-old poetry professor with a nifty European accent.
“What is true is that this was a guy who could control what happened to the rest of her life. He not only was her adviser, with the power to accept or reject her master’s thesis, he also sat on the board that approved which students would be accepted into the doctoral program. Of course, he claims that she only brought these charges after he refused to give her a free pass on the thesis and sponsor her for the doctoral program.”
Rachman shook her head again. “It always amazes me how these guys expect us to believe these stories—like a woman would use rape charges to blackmail a college professor so that she wouldn’t have to write her thesis paper.” She looked around the table with a “can you believe this shit” smile on her face, but froze when she saw Kipman adjust his glasses and prepare to read from a document.
“It says in this report that the complainant did not go to university officials until nearly 3PM the next day,” he said. “Why is that?”
Rachman’s eyes glittered with hate. “You want to tell me what you’re doing with reports from my office?”
Kipman didn’t blink. “I believe that you’re aware that one of my functions is prior review of questionable cases before we make formal charges. In light of the recent reversal on the case we just discussed, I thought it might be a good idea to look over another alleged case of acquaintance rape.”
“So you’re checking up on me,” Rachman hissed.
Karp cleared his throat. “Don’t look at it that way, Rachel. It’s just that sometimes two sets of eyes are better than one. This is not a reflection on your abilities as a prosecutor; we are all aware of your excellent work in the courtroom. However, if we are going to convict people in this office, I want to make sure we do it the right way so that they remain convicted. So what about Harry’s question regarding the nearly seventeen hours between the alleged assault and the victim reporting it?”
“Well, I thought I’d covered that.” Rachman sulked.
“Humor me,” Karp responded.
“The victim was worried that reporting the rape would ruin her chances of getting her thesis accepted and moving on to the doctoral program—essentially all those years spent pursuing her education would be meaningless. Apparently this Michalik had a great deal of pull in the department—he’s like the god of Russian poetry—which I probably don’t need to point out is a very male-dominated gang. She was afraid that no one would believe her story. She didn’t know that an investigator would find that glass of beer or the existence of the roofies. He could just claim the act was consensual and she’d be out of the department and out of a career.”
“Then why did she come forward at all?” Kipman asked.
“She went to his office that afternoon to demand an apology. But he made it clear that he expected her to perform at his whim—essentially, she would be his sex slave for as long as she remained at the school. She was so repulsed by his behavior and the thought that he might be doing this to other female students that she felt she had a duty to report his behavior.”
Kipman looked back down at the file. “I’m looking at her first interview with the police. It’s pretty extensive, but nowhere does she say that she asked Michalik to stop what he was doing.” He turned to another page. “And according to the doctor who examined Michalik following his arrest, there were no wounds as if she tried to fight him off.”
Rachman rolled her eyes. “Again, I repeat myself here, but she was drugged, and when she woke up, she was tied to the couch. How was she supposed to fight him off?”
“What about the reports in the newspapers that the complainant may be mentally unstable?” Kipman asked.
They all knew that he was referring to a story in the New York Post that quoted a former roommate, who said that six months before the incident with Michalik, Ryder had been admitted to Bellevue Hospital after police decided that she was “a danger to herself and others,” and that—according to another acquaintance—had a few months later been taken to the hospital again following a drug overdose. “I believe the story said something about this being in reaction to splitting up with her boyfriend at the time, a member of the New York Rangers, if I remember correctly.”
“Oh puhleeeze,” Rachman said, rolling her eyes. “Since when are medical records not related to the case in question relevant? What’s going on here? Have I suddenly been transported back into the Dark Ages of Jurisprudence when every slimy defense attorney got to paint the victim as a whore for wearing short skirts, or because she had consensual sex with one man before being raped by another?” She glared at Kipman. “Let’s just go back to the days when anyone who wasn’t a virgin wrapped in a burlap sack was a slut who got what she deserved. The shield laws were invented for just that sort of misogynist mindset.”
“That’s crap,” Kipman retorted in his classic frustration-driven staccato.
Karp had to look down quickly so that Rachman wouldn’t see the smile that had forced itself onto his face. He wasn’t smiling about the case, but it always amused him when Kipman swore. It just didn’t seem natural.
“Shield laws were developed for cases where strangers snatch the victims off the streets and rape them, and there is no doubt that crimes were committed,” Kipman said. “Then a victim’s sexual history or dress or mental state would not be relevant. They were not, however, created with acquaintance rape in mind, where there is a question not just of guilt but whether a crime even occurred. Which, by the way, is why victim is an inappropriate term for complainant at this stage of the game. Therefore, our first duty is to determine if there even was a crime—or whether the law is being used to further someone’s agenda. In these instances, it is in the interest of justice that we weigh the complainant’s sexual and mental history to see if it is relevant to establishing the truth. As much as sex has been used to control and debase women, it would not be the first time that a woman has used an accusation of rape to ruin the life and reputation of a man.”
“Oh, my God,” Rachman replied. “As if a woman would put herself through all the torment that a rape trial involves to get even. Studies show that less than 5 percent of rape allegations are manufactured, and most of those are dropped before charges are brought. In this case, we have a ton of physical and circumstantial evidence supporting the victim’s story. And since you’re reading the reports, you might note that Michalik first told police that—like Clinton—he didn’t have sexual contact with the victim. If that’s so, how did his semen get on her blouse?”
Kipman didn’t answer right away, so Karp decided it was a good time to wind this discussion down. “Good point, Rachel,” he said. “And good questions, Harry, the sort of thing your people will have to deal with, Rachel, when the defense gets a look at this stuff. But let’s remember that it’s Harry’s job to make sure that we’ve crossed the t ’s and dotted the i ’s before we go forward. I’d like us to follow up on these reports in the newspapers, as well as the timing issue. Come back next week and we’ll discuss filing charges.”
“Bullshit!” Rachman exploded. The other attorneys around the table let their mouths hang open in embarrassed silence. “I was going to file this afternoon. I…well, I sort of alerted the press…”
“What!” Karp exclaimed, fighting a sudden urge to strangle Rachman. Unable to look at her for the moment without staring daggers, he looked instead at the others. “Now listen to me all of you, because I’m only going to say this once: This office will not go forward with charges unless we are 100 percent—no, make that 1,000 percent—certain that we can establish factual guilt and have legally admissible evidence to convict beyond a reasonable doubt to a moral certainty. A defense attorney’s obligation is to zealously defend his client; ours is to establish the truth.”
Finally Karp felt he could look at Rachman without spitting, but the famous Karp glare drained the color from her face nonetheless. “The complainant’s sexual and mental history might not be relevant in the courtroom—that’s for a judge to decide and a hearing is where you make your arguments that they’re not—but they are damn relevant to her credibility with this office and whether we have established that moral certainty I just referred to before we go forward with a case. Furthermore, we do not try our cases in the media. Under no circumstances do we give them a heads-up on impending charges without clearing it through me, and I’ll tell you right now that 99.9 percent of the time, my answer will be no. Do I make myself clear to all of you?”
There was a murmur of assents but he couldn’t tell if Rachman’s had been one of them, as she kept her face down, staring at the floor. He decided to deal with it later and said, “Okay, let’s move on.”
They got through the rest of the meeting with no further outbursts. There was the usual assortment of robberies, assaults, and murders, only one of which really stood out. A man of apparently Middle Eastern descent had been murdered in Central Park and his severed head placed on the spiked fence that ran around the Conservatory Gardens.
“I say apparently Middle Eastern,” the head of homicide said,
“because that’s what our forensic people are guessing. The body hasn’t been found, and we haven’t been able to identify him. The police are treating it as a hate crime, possibly motivated by revenge tied to the execution murders of Americans in Iraq by Al Qaeda, because of the decapitation aspect. So far there isn’t much else to go on either. Nobody saw anything, even though it’s a fairly well-traveled area, even at night. Oh, there was one clue—Rev. 6:2.”
Fury (The Butch Karp and Marlene Ciampi Series Book 17) Page 17
