Douglas County prosecutors move to drop false rape report case against KU student
Update: A judge Tuesday approved the motion, officially dismissing the case.
Douglas County prosecutors on Monday filed a motion to drop all charges against a University of Kansas student who had been accused of falsely reporting a rape.
Eve Kemple, chief assistant district attorney of Douglas County, filed the motion Monday afternoon to drop the three felony counts of making a false report against the woman. Had the case gone to trial, the woman would have faced up to 23 months in prison if convicted.
A Douglas County judge approved the motion Tuesday, officially dismissing the case.
In a statement Monday, District Attorney Charles Branson said the case was dropped after much discussion and consideration. His office believed in the merits of the case, he said, but the “cost to our community and the negative impact on survivors of sexual violence cannot be ignored.
“We are concerned this case, and the significant amount of misinformation surrounding it, could discourage other survivors from reporting their attack,” Branson said. “That is unacceptable.”
The decision comes after The Star published several stories about the case, examining the police investigation and Branson’s position that the woman’s rape kit did not need to be tested.
Cheryl Pilate and Branden Bell, attorneys for the woman, said they were pleased their client could “finally put this nightmare behind her.” The case, they said, should have never been filed in the first place.
The woman’s attorneys said the district attorney’s statement showed his office continued to lack “an adequate understanding of the trauma suffered by sexual assault survivors” and the different ways each might respond.
“We are disappointed that the DA’s office continues to promote the fiction that this case was supported by the facts,” Pilate and Bell said. It was not.”
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DA to make new guidelines
The woman’s attorneys have said she was innocent and has been mistreated by the Lawrence Police Department and the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office after she reported being raped by a friend of her ex-boyfriend in September 2018.
Branson has previously said the woman fabricated the story out of regret and to get back at her ex-boyfriend.
Text messages the woman sent the night of the incident indicated to police that the sex had been consensual, according to court documents.
The woman said in the court documents that the text messages were making light of the incident because she was not able to admit at that point that she had been raped.
Going forward, Branson said in his statement Monday, he planned to work with police to update his office’s guidelines for investigating and prosecuting sexually violent crimes.
Law enforcement will provide multiple options for “survivors to report crimes on their terms,” he said.
“It is my hope that new guidelines in our jurisdiction will allow for a better understanding and more clarity for everyone involved from reporting to prosecuting to supporting survivors through their recovery,” he said.
The Star generally does not name possible victims of sexual assault or people accused of sexual assault if they have not been criminally charged.
Investigation in Lawrence
At a hearing in September, a Lawrence police detective who led the investigation testified that he decided the woman was lying the same day she made her report.
During the investigation, police uncovered texts from the alleged assailant discussing how drunk the student was and saying it appeared she wanted to have sex with him.
In the texts, his friend noted that the alleged assailant “didn’t even look tipsy.”
After the woman was charged, her defense attorneys sought to have her rape kit tested by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, but the state agency said it would not do it without a request from law enforcement.
At the time, District Attorney Branson told The Star that he had no intention of testing a rape kit from the case because they would not be able to obtain the man’s DNA to test against the kit. Branson said he believed the testing should be paid for by the defense.
But at a later court hearing Kemple, the prosecutor, said a detective contacted the KBI to ask the agency to test the woman’s sexual assault exam.
Court arguments
At a hearing last month, the woman’s attorneys asked Judge Amy Hanley to dismiss two of the three counts brought against the woman, citing outrageous governmental conduct. And they asked that statements made when the woman was arrested be suppressed and not used in trial.
They argued that, after the woman made her initial report of sexual assault, police caused her to make the same report two more times in the course of the investigation. The judge ruled that police were working to investigate the crime, not add further charges.
The attorneys moved to suppress statements the woman made when she was arrested due to Fifth and Sixth amendment violations, but that motion was also denied. They argued that the detective interrogated the woman when he arrested her before reading her her Miranda rights.
The judge ruled that some of the statements were made after the woman had formally waived those rights. The questions posed by the detective prior to reading the defendant her rights, the judge said, did not constitute an interrogation and therefore did not violate the woman’s rights.
According to testimony and exhibits during the hearing last month, the officer asked the woman if she would like to speak about the case. When she asked what he wanted her to say, he gave his opinion on the case and said he hoped for the truth.
The woman then said, “this happened,” referring to the alleged sexual assault.
Prosecutors also sought to place limits on evidence and the conduct of defense attorneys when the case was heading to trial.
Prosecutors asked a judge to prohibit those in the courtroom from referring to the woman as a victim of sexual assault or rape.
Kemple, the prosecutor, also asked the judge to issue a “’gag’ order” on the woman and her attorneys, preventing them from speaking with media or publishing information about the trial prior to its conclusion.
This story was originally published October 28, 2019 at 3:51 PM.
