Review of city sex cases sought

Women's groups and a city judge want to reopen thousands of assault cases police labeled non-crimes.

By Mark Fazlollah,
Michael Matza
Craig R. McCoy
and Clea Benson
INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS

Women's groups and a Philadelphia judge yesterday called for a review of thousands of sexual-assault cases shelved by the police sex-crimes unit in recent years to see whether any could lead to prosecutions.

Leaders of Women Organized Against Rape (WOAR) and the Women's Law Project said they wanted a systematic examination, either by the Police Department or an independent group, of rape complaints dumped in a bureaucratic limbo known as Code 2701 - "investigation of person."

"The women of Philadelphia are owed an explanation about how cases are being handled currently and also a review of cases on which the statute of limitation has not closed," said Carol E. Tracy, executive director of the nonprofit Women's Law Project.

Carole J. Johnson, executive director of WOAR, said such a review should seek to determine whether charges could be brought in any of the cases.

"My fear is that there are people out there who are feeling that they did not get a chance to have their cases heard," Johnson said.

Lisa A. Richette, a senior Common Pleas Court judge, added her voice to those demanding a reexamination of the buried cases.

"They should all be reviewed," Richette said in an interview. "They just cannot dust this stuff under the rug."

In articles published yesterday and Sunday, The Inquirer reported that the sex-crimes unit put thousands of sexual-assault complaints - about 30 percent of its caseload - in the "investigation of person" category from 1984 until late 1997.

Current and former investigators said the practice was forced on them by a steep workload and pressure from commanders to generate favorable crime statistics.

By shelving cases in Code 2701, the rape squad kept them out of the city's official crime tally. The practice was never revealed to the public or to sexual-assault victims.

Cases given the noncriminal designation typically received little or no investigation, The Inquirer reported. Many victims said investigators never contacted them after an initial hospital interview. Others said sex-crime officers seemed determined to poke holes in their accounts.

Asked for comment on yesterday's appeals for a review, Police Commissioner John F. Timoney said through a spokeswoman that neither the women's advocates nor Richette had contacted him.

Timoney "would welcome a personal discussion of their concerns," the spokeswoman said.

Timoney has said previously that he would not review cases from before 1998, his first year as police commissioner. He said he did not have time or resources for such an effort.

"I'm not going back to 1997 or 1996 and start going through things that are 2701," Timoney said earlier this year. "They are there, and there's nothing I can do about it."

Although the sex-crimes unit parked cases in "investigation of person" for 14 years, a review could lead to prosecutions only in more recent cases. The statute of limitations on rape and other felony sex crimes is five years. On indecent assault and other lesser offenses, it is two years.

Among the shelved cases documented by The Inquirer was that of a North Philadelphia woman beaten and raped on a playground in 1995. The victim gave police a detailed description of her assailant, his nickname - "Wild Bill" - and leads to his whereabouts.

An investigator closed the case and labeled it "investigation of person," saying he could not reach the victim by phone. His report makes no mention of an attempt to find "Wild Bill."

The first two confirmed attacks by the Rittenhouse Square rapist were also initially written up as "investigation of person." The cases were linked to the rapist by DNA testing conducted within the last two weeks - in one instance, after Inquirer reporters asked questions about the case.

The practice of putting sexual-assault complaints into noncriminal codes has diminished under Timoney, but it has not ended. Since late 1997, the sex-crimes unit has put about 5 percent of its caseload in a different noncriminal category - Code 2625, "investigation, protection, medical examination."

Timoney said in an interview last week that the unit was using the new code appropriatelyand that all cases given the "2625" label were fully investigated.

WOAR and the Women's Law Project also called on the department to move the Special Victims Unit out of its current headquarters at the old Frankford Arsenal and to a more central and more attractive location.

The arsenal is a former military compound ringed by walls topped with barbed wire. Some victims said they found the location forbidding and the sex-crimes unit's offices, in a yellow-brick building, cramped and dingy.

"Sex crimes has to be moved to an adequate location," said Tracy. "It's a dump, and for women and children to have to travel to that sort of environment is just wholly unnecessary."

Timoney said last week that the department had no plans to move the unit. He said that the arsenal site afforded privacy for victims and that "improvements to the interior have been made and are ongoing."

Barbara Burgos DiTullio, president of the Pennsylvania chapter of the National Organization for Women, said the department also needed more officers on the sex-crimes unit.

Its 69 officers are expected to handle 5,000 complaints this year. The workload per investigator is 13 times higher than that for homicide investigators, although rape-squad officers say their cases are often as complex as murders.

The key, DiTullio said, is "resources and how they're being used."