Seventeen years had handed by the purpose Boston police knocked on Louise’s door to voice they’d identified the man who allegedly raped and stabbed her in October 2005.
Reporting highlights
A national outlier: Most states allow on the least some feeble rape conditions to be prosecuted, but makes an attempt to elongate the statute of boundaries in Massachusetts maintain failed every 365 days since 2011.
A brief window: Massachusetts laws prevents prosecution of rape suspects after 15 years, even when investigators mediate fresh evidence, along with DNA, could seemingly also consequence in a conviction.
A rare look for: Police reports of rape conditions are secret beneath an uncommon divulge laws. However one Boston-space case offers a rare look for into the impact of the rapid statute of boundaries.
The suspect used to be now a father of two, a seemingly serial rapist and sure beyond the attain of the laws, investigators suggested her. Police had taken goodbye to call him that they overlooked the divulge’s slice-off date to prosecute her case.
In Massachusetts, the laws says prosecutors maintain finest 15 years to file charges after an alleged rape. Past that statute of boundaries, it’s almost about now now not skill to carry charges. Serene, prosecutors belief they’ll be ready to switch this explain case ahead on a technicality.
Louise used to be anxious. She had spent years reliving the phobia of that night time and combating drug exercise that spun out of control after the attack. On occasion she failed out of rehab applications or stayed in homeless shelters. (WBUR does now now not name victims of sexual assault with out their permission and agreed to call Louise finest by her middle name.)
By 2022, she used to be 42, sober, dwelling in her hold house and elevating two college-age sons. She could seemingly also now now not roam relief into her feeble ways.
However, as the daughter of a Marine unheard of, Louise believed she crucial to fight: She felt her community would now now not be trusty till her rapist used to be in penal advanced.
“You’ve got to stand for one thing,” Louise said.
Past the 15-365 days slice-off date in Massachusetts, no DNA match, eyewitness testimony or even confession can present a rape victim a chance at going thru an attacker in court.
This statute of boundaries locations Massachusetts within the help of virtually every other divulge within the nation.
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A overview of prison codes by WBUR and ProPublica stumbled on that as many as 47 states allow extra time to charge rapes or identical assaults of adults than Massachusetts. As an illustration, Vermont and Maryland are among a set of states that ought to not maintain any slice-off date to file charges for rape. Varied states like Montana and Texas extend their slice-off dates when there’s DNA evidence.
In many states, Louise’s case will seemingly be determined in court on the energy of its evidence. However right here, evidence would now now not topic. The case would be virtually now now not skill to fetch.
Misplaced possibilities
Legislation enforcement and rape crisis workers across Massachusetts said in interviews that they routinely bump into conditions where no charges had been filed sooner than the divulge’s strict slice-off date. How incessantly rape suspects avoid prosecution this implies that’s unclear.
Massachusetts is uncommon in that divulge victim privateness laws bar police from releasing incident reports of rape to the public. Unless a suspect is charged in court, it’s incessantly hard to salvage any reliable files about a rape. And even when somebody is charged, police can tranquil advantage files about what they did — or did now now not develop — to call and capture a suspected rapist.
This makes it all but now now not skill for anybody outdoor laws enforcement to seek rapes which can seemingly be previous the slice-off date to prosecute.
In enlighten to realise the extent of conditions lost to the statute of boundaries, WBUR and ProPublica spoke to researchers, prosecutors and lawmakers.
Rape crisis center leaders enlighten survivors of sexual assaults that occurred decades within the past incessantly place a inquire as to whether or now now not the prison lawful system can wait on them. The Suffolk County district prison real’s space of enterprise, no doubt one of basically the most populous jurisdictions within the divulge, relies mostly in Boston and prosecuted Louise’s case. A longtime intercourse crimes prosecutor there said his space of enterprise opinions a number of conditions every 365 days that it could perhaps perhaps seemingly now now not pursue as a result of statute of boundaries.
“These are serious charges. Females are being raped.”
Bristol County District Attorney Thomas Quinn
About two years within the past, the Bristol County district prison real’s space of enterprise identified 21 rapes that it could perhaps perhaps seemingly even maintain prosecuted had been it now now not for the statute of boundaries. They got right here to gentle when the agency aged a federal grant to compare DNA evidence in rape conditions that had now now not been completely examined when it used to be first serene.
Bristol County District Attorney Thomas Quinn is no doubt one of many divulge’s few prosecutors who has spoken in opt of allowing charges after the slice-off date in conditions with DNA evidence.
“Here’s to rectify a unfriendly, at the same time as you happen to will, or a assignment that didn’t work,” Quinn suggested WBUR. “These are serious charges. Females are being raped.”
Particulars of Louise’s case finest turned into public because Suffolk County prosecutors took the uncommon step of filing charges even within the occasion that they’d overlooked the divulge’s charging slice-off date. This ended in the release of some files referring to the rape that could seemingly in every other case were shielded by the divulge’s privateness laws.
Those files expose that years sooner than the slice-off date handed in Louise’s alleged rape, police had already gathered many of the clues they’d later exercise to call a suspect, but did now now not resolve the case.
Louise: His name is Ivan
When she used to be 25, Louise’s life used to be starting to fall apart. She labored as a waitress and switchboard operator, and she used to be experimenting with medication.
Within the in a single day hours of Oct. 22, 2005, a particular person she had been pals with demanded charge for medication he had given her, in accordance with a court file, then coerced her into having intercourse with a stranger at a resort to pay off the debt.
Whenever you or somebody you know has skilled sexual violence, that you would perhaps contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-4673 or focus on over with RAINN’s web web page.
After 2 a.m., the friend dropped her off in downtown Boston.
It used to be raining exhausting, the trains had stopped running and she wished a dash to a friend’s house. That’s when she belief she seen a pleasant face.
The man who drove as much as her in a Lexus SUV supplied himself as Ivan and said he knew her from UMass Boston, where she had taken classes, she recalled. He said he used to be on a see rupture, and he looked the part. He had a young face and wore a baseball cap with a college name on it.
She said the man supplied to pay for intercourse and she refused, court files expose. He drove her to a secluded space in Everett, and raped and stabbed her, she suggested police. When Louise escaped his automobile, he chased her down with a knife and she fell.
“He kept stabbing me,” she said in an interview. “I take into accout my head jerking relief because the knife used to be in my head.”
The man fled to his automobile after the fight. Louise sought wait on at a internal sight house.
At the scientific institution, it took bigger than 100 stitches to shut the stab wounds that covered her body. Medical doctors suggested her the knife barely overlooked her foremost organs.
Louise let a specialist swab her body for the man’s DNA. Whereas she said she did now now not verbalize on the time that she had been coerced into intercourse work earlier that night time, she suggested investigators every little thing else she knew: Police files said she gave the name her attacker aged, his escape, which she said used to be either white or Asian, and a description of his automobile. At the time, she suggested police that he said he had attended UMass Boston and used to be now at Tufts. She hoped this files would consequence in an arrest.
Had police checked with UMass Boston, they’d maintain chanced on that 18 males named Ivan attended the college within the years surrounding the attack, in accordance with pupil files reviewed by WBUR. The man who police one way or the opposite connected to DNA evidence in Louise’s case used to be among them.
Everett police interviewed Louise a number of times and reviewed surveillance camera photography, she said, however the calls and visits from police waned over the coming months.
Louise stopped calling the police to envision on her case as the years went by. She said she had moved on from the exercise of painkillers to counting on heroin, cocaine and other medication to produce it thru the day. She feared that her rapist would return to assassinate her, and the medication had been her way of facing extreme miserable and put up-traumatic stress dysfunction, she said.
In 2008, Boston police received fresh evidence suggesting that whoever attacked Louise is in overall a serial rapist, a detective later said in court files. The department’s crime lab stumbled on that DNA from her case matched an unsolved 2006 attack. That victim used to be picked up in Boston’s North Discontinue, then stabbed and raped in suburban Wellesley.
It’s unclear how police replied to this fresh files. With the wait on of WBUR and ProPublica, Louise aged an exception for survivors within the divulge’s privateness laws to set her Everett police file. However the 2-web page file particulars nothing of the investigation beyond the first 24 hours after the attack.
Everett police declined to commentary on the case. The Middlesex County district prison real’s space of enterprise, which had jurisdiction on the time of the attack, did now now not commentary. The Suffolk County district prison real’s space of enterprise, which took over the case after Boston detectives in its jurisdiction identified a suspect, said it did now now not maintain particulars about how prior agencies handled the case. Boston police did now now not present a response to multiple requests for an interview.
Louise said she does now now not recall whether or now now not police or prosecutors suggested her that DNA assessments confirmed her unknown assailant could seemingly even maintain attacked one other lady.
Years later, when police lastly identified a suspect, it could perhaps perhaps seemingly be too gradual to preserve up anybody responsible. The slice-off date to charge a suspect with tried assassinate in Louise’s case had handed after 10 years and the slice-off date for rape had handed at 15 years.
Extending the statute of boundaries
Presently, the finest states that maintain shorter slice-off dates than Massachusetts and don’t produce exceptions for DNA evidence are North Dakota and New Hampshire, a WBUR and ProPublica overview of divulge laws stumbled on. The most restrictive is New Hampshire’s six-365 days slice-off date.
A long time of compare into how rape is reported and investigated has pushed lawmakers outdoor of Massachusetts to extend their statutes of boundaries.
All over the 2000s, a number of states handed exceptions for conditions with DNA because it turned into obvious that this roughly forensic evidence could seemingly also wait on resolve even very feeble conditions.
Varied states followed as police departments started to verbalize within the 2010s that they systemically failed to test DNA evidence in rape conditions. Within the period in-between, a growing body of compare stumbled on that police incessantly performed inadequate rape investigations, deciding reports had been faux sooner than interviewing witnesses, gathering evidence or checking out DNA. Across the nation, most reports of rape develop now now not consequence in prosecution, compare presentations.
“They hold the victim,” said Michigan Express University professor Rebecca Campbell, who has authored multiple compare on how police conduct rape investigations. “That’s what I stumbled on in my compare, and it’s been replicated by other compare groups and other jurisdictions within the future of the United States.”
The in trend complications prompted national reforms. In 2015, the U.S. Division of Justice launched its National Sexual Assault Kit Initiative to commit loads of hundreds of thousands of bucks to checking out previously overlooked DNA. This effort produced enough evidence to lastly carry charges in reasonably a number of these conditions, and lawmakers in other states revised their slice-off dates so prosecutions could seemingly also switch ahead.
The switch to extend the slice-off date has been a bipartisan space off in loads of states. Factual final 365 days in Oklahoma, unheard of divulge Sen. Jessica Garvin, a Republican, led a a hit effort to win rid of the divulge’s statute of boundaries in conditions where there could be a confession or DNA evidence. The invoice handed unanimously.
“We had been ready to invent that final session with in actuality very minute, if any, pushback,” Garvin said. “It’s now now not a Republican disclose. It’s now now not a Democratic disclose.”
In Massachusetts, laws that could seemingly extend the slice-off date has been supplied all the way thru every session since on the least 2011. However every time, it has failed to attain steam.
Protection attorneys maintain antagonistic any adjustments, pronouncing that making the slice-off date longer risks violating the rights of the accused.
Witnesses, surveillance photography and other evidence that could seemingly obvious a suspect becomes extra hard to salvage as time passes, said Shira Diner, a board member of the Massachusetts Affiliation of Prison Protection Lawyers.
“The extra and extra you win away from the alleged commission of the crime, the extra worthy it’s for somebody to ever mount a protection,” she said.
The final time divulge lawmakers modified the statute used to be in 1996 after victims got right here ahead to voice they’d delayed reporting their rapes due to community backlash or unhappy treatment by police.
Legislators lengthened the divulge’s slice-off date to prosecute rapes of adults from 10 to fifteen years.
Connecting the dots
In gradual 2021, the Division of Justice initiative awarded Boston $2.5 million to reexamine as much as 100 of the metropolis’s most serious unsolved rapes. The funds paid a puny community of investigators to sweep thru feeble case recordsdata to behold clues.
The fresh crew revisited Louise’s rape internal months. This time they certain that her case and the North Discontinue rape had been associated to earlier attacks, court files expose.
Most had been unsolved, but a particular person named Ivan Cheung used to be arrested in no doubt one of them. Boston University police took him into custody in 2003 after they stumbled on him in possession of a knife and the belongings of a lady who used to be allegedly raped at knifepoint. The Boston Police Division, which took over the case, said in court files that they suspected the victim used to be defending up her ties to the intercourse work industry. Prosecutors dropped the charges a number of weeks later.
When the fresh crew of investigators revisited this case in 2022, they seen that Cheung resembled the assailant Louise described in her attack: a particular person named Ivan who had attended UMass Boston. At the time of the rape, he owned a Lexus SUV.
This take into consideration Cheung ended in a breakthrough. That June, undercover officers tailed him to a mall automobile automobile parking space in Dorchester, where they watched him smoke and toss away a cigarette.
DNA from that cigarette matched two assaults: Louise’s rape and the North Discontinue attack.
By September, police had arrested Cheung for Louise’s attack, the North Discontinue rape and two other commence conditions intriguing teenage ladies. He used to be dwelling within the Boston space and working as a monetary services govt.
The arrest used to be seemingly because investigators received the time and property to take a new look for at feeble conditions, said Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney Ian Polumbaum, who prosecuted the case.
A detective confirmed Cheung a characterize of Louise and asked if he had raped her and others. Cheung suggested police that he did now now not acknowledge the ladies and that there used to be no way his DNA could seemingly also were stumbled on on any of them, court files expose.
“I’m telling you no f—ing way. I don’t even know her name. I don’t even know her face,” he said all the way thru the recorded interview with police. Cheung and his prison real declined an interview with WBUR.
The explicit way Suffolk County prosecutors could seemingly also switch ahead with Louise’s case and the North Discontinue attack used to be on a technicality: A divulge laws suspends the slice-off date if a suspect lives out of divulge. Prosecutors said Cheung traveled incessantly, but they couldn’t present he had relocated. In October 2023, charges in opposition to Cheung for the attacks on Louise and the North Discontinue victim had been dropped.
Along with her case over, Louise said she pinned her hopes on the 2 perfect conditions connected to the suspect. Police said in court files the alleged victims had been 13 and 14 and being trafficked for intercourse on the time of their attacks. On myth of they had been so young, the divulge’s statute of boundaries did now now not block their conditions from transferring ahead, and there used to be a chance a hold would allow Louise to testify within the occasion that they went to trial.
However these two conditions had other complications: They’d no DNA evidence, and prosecutors acknowledged that the evidence tying these conditions to Cheung used to be now now not as stable. In no doubt one of many conditions, Boston police had now now not interviewed the alleged victim till almost about 2 decades after her attack, and she used to be unwilling to testify, court filings expose. Within the opposite, a hold favorite in a ruling that police performed no forensic scientific examination of the victim and regarded to produce no strive at locating a criminal offense scene.
“The police response used to be severely unhappy,” Suffolk Superior Court docket Deem Christopher Belezos wrote within the December 2024 ruling.
The district prison real suggested the hold they crucial Louise’s testimony to expose the rapes had been so identical that Cheung used to be the finest seemingly assailant. However Belezos barred Louise from testifying, pronouncing her case used to be too varied: The attacks had occurred in varied areas and their descriptions of their assailants’ escape and autos did now now not match.
Prosecutors dropped Cheung’s perfect charges in January.
“ It used to be frustrating, but at that point, legally we had no more than a number of,” said Polumbaum. In court files, Cheung moreover denied any involvement in these alleged attacks.
Now that the court struggle is over, Louise is combating to preserve up her peace of mind. She crowds her spare hours with therapy and enhance groups, and she fills her house partitions with symbols of renewal, change and faith. A crimson foil decal with the word “Deem” hangs among prints of butterflies, dragonflies and birds.
When WBUR interviewed Louise, it used to be the first time she had mentioned her rape publicly. She said these interviews, and the failure to convict Cheung, helped her realize she wished to develop extra.
In June she testified sooner than the divulge Legislature’s Joint Committee on the Judiciary to breeze them to cross Condominium Invoice 1987, which is pending. It could perhaps seemingly allow prosecutors to charge suspects after the slice-off date in some rape conditions with DNA evidence.
“ It in actuality need to be modified for the protection of all, for the public at sizable,” she testified. “That’s why I’m talking.”
WBUR’s Patrick Madden contributed reporting, and WBUR’s Jesús Marrero Suárez contributed compare.
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