Police Release Torture-Rapist Because the Victim is a Prostitute

The following is a transcript of testimony given to the San Francisco Coalition on Prostitution in 1994. The locale of these events, and other details have been deleted to protect the identity of the victim.

... I got to the door and I knocked on it and he answered but I didn't see a face, and he kind of peeked around and opened the door wider and I could just see his head and his shoulders. I just walked directly .. and I picked up the phone and then I looked at him and then I realized it was only him ...not incredibly unusual but anyhow I was scared and so I told him .. I tried to pay no attention to the fact that he wasn't wearing pants I just started talking to him like he was anyone else and I had to call in ... so he told me he knew the way that it worked and he leaned into the staircase that was covered by a wall so I couldn't see him anymore and then I started dialing the agency's number cause I was pretty scared.

But I didn't get to call. The agency is usually careful, and just the week before we had a scare with my roommate who was doing this and she, they called me and told me they were calling the police then they called the police because they thought that something had happened to her because she didn't call the agency back and that is not typical, you were good about, I mean you were always supposed to call and then they would call back in an hour, but this time something went wrong.

So...there was knife at my temple and he told me to drop everything and then he asked me if I had money, where I had my purse, if I had any, if I had a driver with me and he ... and he kept saying, he was repetitive. After I convinced him there was no weapon and there was no driver and I had no money, actually I didn't have my driverÔs license or anything and I hadn't realized that until I got there and he was asking me for it and then he raped me... from the very beginning he had the knife and he started picking the skin on my nose and saying that he was going to... (Material deleted)

Then for the rest of the time that I was there he sodomized me ...during the time that he was doing that to me he, the total that I was there with him it was probably about 3 1/2 hours or 4 hours ...and I thought maybe he was going to kill me, and he was talking about all sorts of things and then about ... the reason why he let me go is because he was pretty convinced that he scared me more and I would come back the next morning dressed as I had dressed for him that night very nicely and he was going to introduce me to some friends and I was going to make him a lot of money, he was going to be my pimp, so we were going to work together. So he let me go.

I got in my car and I pulled away. ..Then I screamed and I drove like a maniac home, I was trying to get a police car to stop me because I was afraid that he was following me, he or somebody else was following me. And then I was running out of gas, I stopped once and I called the agency to tell them what had happened to me and then I was trying to get a policeman to pull me over and they said don't do anything until you call us from home, they asked me .. not to call anyone until I got home, meaning the police, and then I tried to get .. throughout the whole night I was so scared I was being followed and then... went home and I called the police, well no, I called the agency again and they told me to tell her, the woman who runs the agency, they asked me to tell her boyfriend what had happened to me and he told me that I should call the police then which I did and I called 911 and the local police came first and then they stayed with me for a while but they couldn't take a statement until the ( ) police came because that's where it happened .. an hour or so to come and so I was being questioned... by three policeman.

And they started taking my statement here and they had a detective come and took photographs of my wound and they checked all of my things and my purse and the clothes I was wearing. I had changed as soon as I got home except for my underwear and they took me down to ... the hospital and they .. took my statement there ... they took my statement for a long time, it was a long story, I was trying to remember everything when it was happening . After that I had given my statement they went to the apartment, his apartment building, I had given his address and phone number and everything that I knew about him that the agency had given me before I even went down there and so then they stopped taking statement and then they put off doing the exam and we went to the apartment to identify him. So I identified the apartment building first and then I tried to identify him ... 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning.

When the first policemen came, I told them that I was, I totally wanted to be honest with them and I said I was there because I was an escort and he said everyone was fine. All the policemen who I had told that too and I can't remember, you know what I'm saying, all like there was 50 of them, but I don't even remember how many people were here. I remember there were like 3... people here at a time. So I told them that I was an escort and they said it doesn't matter, you are a victim, you were raped, it has no bearing on it, you were raped.

I was so scared. So they all told me that it was okay and I had been raped and that was not a problem, it was good that I was telling them the truth and everything. So, then I went to the apartment building, first they had me walk up the path and identify which apartment it was, then they asked me, how I recognized it and I remembered that there was some weird....the whole way that it was .. the front door the way it was and the number of the apartment building and the door mat and everything and then they took me back to the car and they sat me in the car and they told me they were going to bring him out in handcuffs and that I get to identify him so they brought him out and that was really scary cause I guess you could leave that up to your own imagination, I was terrified, and he came out, he was dressed differently than he had been and he had glasses which he wasn't wearing the entire time when I had seen him and so at first I was kind of shocked he looked the way he did because... but then he turned to the side and I remembered the one thing about him... I identified him and then they took him in the car and he was looking back at me the whole time and they said he couldn't see me in the car but I thought he probably could ... took me to the hospital. Actually, they made me wait for a while, he left first, they took him to the same hospital , the same hospital that I was in .... so they made me wait right out in front of his apartment building in the car with the policemen and detectives for about 20 minutes before they took me back to the hospital because they wanted to be sure that he was out of the way and I didn't have to see him again. We went back then to the hospital and I finished giving my statement and then they took me and had the examination and the police were requesting, they were requesting that the nurses or doctors take photographs of my wound and they didn't take very good photographs ... they were, I wasn't in the position to tell them what to take pictures of because I hadn't even looked at my own body.

There was a woman there who was from the rape crisis center. That was her job there... she was there the entire time but I don't think she took the pictures. I think that it was a nurse ....She was someone who was just in charge of being, like she was supposed to, she stayed with me when everyone else was gone.

They took semen samples. And hair samples and nail samples. I know that they took a very long time, the doctor and the nurse practitioner, they were there setting up some camera and they were supposed to take pictures of me internally, the damage ... and they dyed me with this blue dye and they took forever because they had to call some guy in it took like an extra hour because they couldn't figure out how to use the camera and then, internal photograph, and then they ran out of film, and there were like 3 other people in there, two other people .. I couldn't figure out what their job was except that they knew how to operate the camera and they looked like, I mean regular civilian clothing, they weren't dressed like hospital anything like that, and they were .. and laughing about how they couldn't figure out the camera and stuff and it was pretty horrible actually I was kind of amazed that it was all happening like that but, so they finally got those pictures and said that they were ... and that they would be good evidence in this case, the reason they were going to such lengths to do this ... And there was a lot of semen, they could ....and then I left.

My (relatives) came to the hospital, but I didn't ask them to be present at the interview because I didn't want them to know everything about what had happened. I didn't have them call my (relatives) until I thought we were almost done.

I found out that the arraignment was happening that Monday, the following Monday, and this was on a Friday that it happened, so I had the weekend, and they told me the arraignment was happening Monday but then I think it was, well I know that the detective called me, I don't know which day it was but it was before they let him go and said that, think it was Sunday, he said that they weren't going to charge him and I didn't understand why and then they told me that I should talk to the DA but that it was because there wasn't enough evidence basically that I had been raped because I was an escort, I was there to, it would be hard to prove that it wasn't consensual.

The Detective told me I had to talk to the DA. I called him. This is after Monday that I talked to him, the detective also told me that I should go to the arraignment and that him seeing me there would make him angry and they can proceed with the investigation. So I went there but I couldn't stay, I just couldn't handle it. And I didn't understand why they wanted me there anyway because all the people were being held behind a wall, you couldn't even see them, but apparently they had him in there but the detective told me, he told me specifically, he told me I'm not going to tell you not to go I think it would be helpful if he saw you for the rest of the investigation, so then I came home and I ended up talking to the D.A.

I think that day on Monday and he said that the reason why they weren't charging the case was because it was, because I had a diaphragm in, I was an escort, it was going to be hard to prove that it wasn't consensual and he said that I should just do whatever it was that the detective wanted me to do to further the investigation and just work along with him and he was a very good detective and he had a plan. And then I talked to the detective again and he asked me to come down to the police station. I went down to the police station I think the very next day after .. and he wanted me to do a taped conversation with the guy who raped me. We tried to call him several times and nobody answered. He wanted me to ... and say you never did pay me and I had to pick up the bill and I had to pay the agency and all that and try to get him to admit that he had done it because his statement said that I was just angry because he didn't pay me enough, but he didn't pay me anything.

...he had another plan and for me to come down another time, we spent like an hour together, I spent an hour with the detective talking to him about the case and why I even had to be there doing this and I really didn't understand. And I understood everything he was telling me but it doesn't make sense to me, like I said I had enough evidence, he raped me ... The same day that morning when I identified him, they showed me a knife and I knew it wasn't the knife that he used and then they showed me another knife that night. But the first night that I made those taped phone calls with the detective and I thought that that might be it but I wasn't sure. That is what they told me on the phone, they said I had to come in and identify it and I couldn't be certain that it was but I thought it might be .

I went there and I wasn't staying at home at that point, I stayed in the City then I stayed at a hotel because I was really afraid cause he was out and I stayed with my boyfriend.....I hadn't been home for a while none of my roommates were here either so ... I went down the night that we had planned to meet to do the phone calls and he wasn't there and someone told me that the detective tried to reach me and told me that he had gotten a call from him saying that he was going out of town. Jim called the detective to ask for his things back that they had taken from him and then the detective said that he tried to talk to him but he couldn't talk to him then and he was trying to get a phone number where he could reach him to do this call but Jim said he would call him back when he got back into town and he never called him back, I guess he never got back into town that I know of.

He's pretty much a dead beat. I hired a private investigator and he found out a bunch of stuff that I didn't want to find out but he told me that he hasn't paid rent....on charges for violating laws but...

No, I talked to him on the phone since then and he always told me that I need to talked to the D.A. So I talked to the D.A. for an hour one evening and he told me some story about why my case isn't being charged, he told me that on paper my case was different and it would be hard to convince a judge and a jury that it was not consensual no matter how strong of a witness I .... And I told him, I mean, I could .. strong witness I mean as character reference I know people who would say, stand up for me and help me. He didn't want that. The other thing I thought was strange was that I had to tell the detective to look for certain things, they weren't even thinking about it. The day afterwards I asked them, actually when I was there with him, when I first met the detective, when I identified Jim at his apartment I said he took a piece of paper of mine that was in my car and had my name on it and he wrapped the knife in it before he got out of my car and you might want to look for that around here somewhere, it might be out around here, you may want to look for knife, but nobody ever looked for it outside or a piece of paper or anything, ... And also like the phone calls that he had made to Tracy and the last one that I made, I don't know for sure but I don't think they ever checked it out. They asked the agency for the number, probably their phone bill but they .. like they knew that they had called Jim's apartment while I was there and he told them that I never showed up and I told them that in my statement. They tried to get the phone bill but they never subpoenaed it they just asked them for it, ....

Actually he was only in charge of the case because he wasn't sure it was non consensual.

I had talked to the detective and I told him that the D.A. told me I was supposed to harass him to help me, they don't even know where Jim ... they have no idea where he is.

The Detective told me he was counting on my private investigator to find him. He said well we were kind of hoping that your private investigator would find him. It's really frustrating because I know what they're going to tell me, the DA always tells me to talk to the detective and he always tell me to talk to the DA and they're always rushing me off, they always tell me to talk to the other one and I keep telling me that and they're telling me that I'm talking to the wrong guy. I have two lawyers in my family but none of them know I was an escort....

...he kind of ditched out on that...After the last time I talked to the detective I talked t