Cry Rape: The True Story of One Woman's Harrowing Quest for Justice (38 page)

Afterword

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King drafted an angry resolution that castigated Axley Brynelson and noted Chief Richard Williams’s duplicity in fabricating a state exoneration. City Attorney Michael May, who received a draft for review, prevailed on King to tone it down, recommending he submit “something less inflammatory that might have a chance of passage.”

In early October 2006, King stood on the steps of Madison’s City-County Building and unveiled to reporters and TV cameras a resolution to remove “a black eye on our city’s reputation.” He was joined by several others, notably including Cheri Maples, the former police captain who had gone on to stints with the state Department of Corrections and state Justice Department. Maples called the case “proof that well-intentioned officers in a community-oriented progressive police department can still make grave mistakes that ruin lives.” Though chagrined by her own role in Patty’s re-victimization, Maples was eager to see some good come from it.

The revised resolution did not mention Williams and said only that Axley’s conduct may have “further victimized Patty” and been “inappropriate under the circumstances.” It praised Patty for helping bring a dangerous criminal to justice. And it set out to accomplish four things:

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Offer the city of Madison’s “heartfelt apology and deepest regrets to Patty, who persevered against all odds after having been brutally assaulted by Joseph Bong and then further victimized by the criminal justice system.”

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Authorize payment of $35,000 from the city to Patty as recompense

“for legal fees, lost wages, and the trauma caused by her experience.”

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Direct that neither the city nor its insurer retain Axley Brynelson through January 1, 2017. (While Axley’s spigot of city business had slowed to a trickle and was shut off entirely in 2005, nothing precluded its resumption.)

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Ask that Noble Wray, who succeeded Williams as chief of police, revise department policy to “eliminate the use of lies, coercion, deception, ruses, or other techniques designed to break down individuals who are reporting that they are victims of sensitive crimes, in all but the rarest of circumstances.”

Six of King’s colleagues signed on as cosponsors. Others were un-decided and one, Cindy Thomas, was hostile. “I am not sure what your real purpose is in bringing this forward,” she scolded King in an e-mail.

“It can’t be to compensate Patty. $35,000 will never do that. Is it to make
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the Police Department look bad? What good does that do? Are you saying that no one in the Police Department (or any dept. really) should ever make a mistake and if they do, the city should pay some reparation for that mistake? The line up for that mea culpa will be very long and will cost the taxpayers enormous sums.” Thomas went on to call Patty

“the poster girl for a lot of Progressives” and claimed such resolutions

“are really making us the laughing stock of government.”

Chief Wray also reacted coolly to the proposal, telling the
Wisconsin
State Journal
it might not be possible to craft a new policy that would make sense and be workable. Under the proposed new rules, he wondered, “If an officer believes that someone is lying about something in an investigation, you don’t explore that?” This was a distortion: Under the proposed policy, police could still ask any questions they wanted and even accuse purported victims of lying; they just could not concoct lies of their own, except in rare circumstances.

Wray’s comments drew negative reaction. “You and your officers are not a law and an institution unto yourselves, with no accountability,” a local activist chided in an e-mail to Wray. The chief ’s ability to defend the status quo was further undercut when a former police spokesman wrote an opinion column giving this ridiculous take on the danger of King’s resolution: “If your child was abducted and the police captured the suspect, wouldn’t you want the police to use every tactic possible to find your missing child? I would.”

On the plus side, Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz lent his name to the cause. A police official, after checking with the mayor’s aide, relayed to Wray that Cieslewicz “wasn’t too thrilled to support [the resolution]

and won’t jump up and down, but is nonetheless doing it.” The measure was also backed, without reservation, by local victim advocates, especially Kelly Anderson, executive director of the Rape Crisis Center.

In mid-October Wray appeared before the Madison Common Council to offer an apology to Patty, who was not present, “for the Department’s role in this very unfortunate case.” The chief stressed that the conclusion reached by police (that Patty was lying) “was also reached by other entities in the criminal justice system.” And he devi-ated from his prepared remarks to praise the officers involved, saying, “I don’t think you can find a group of more caring, committed, and compassionate people.”

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But the chief ’s apology—which he later sent to Patty with a handwritten addendum, “Again, on behalf of the Madison Police Department, we are truly sorry”—was a major turnaround. Shortly after becoming chief in the fall of 2004, Wray was asked on a local TV show if he might offer Patty an apology, from the top. His reply: “I’ll check that out and see if it’s appropriate.” No apology was made for another twenty-two months, until what Wray called “the recent public attention” forced his hand.

Wray also retreated from his initial resistance to the proposed policy changes. In mid-November he appeared before a council committee to report that he had assigned this task to Captain Tom Snyder, who years earlier had relayed to me Woodmansee’s comment about how Patty

“didn’t act like a rape victim.” Wray suggested that concerns about police interrogation methods could be addressed “with the use of videotape” and expressed his belief that the public would be pleased with the new policy.

The committee voted 6–1 in favor of the resolution, a tribute to King’s extensive behind-the-scenes lobbying; the lone dissenter was an alderwoman who felt it was not “the council’s role” to take on such matters. Still, passage was not assured. Because of the fiscal component, it would need fifteen votes, a three-quarter majority, to pass as direct legislation. So less than a week before the vote, King introduced the $35,000 payment as an amendment to the city’s 2007 budget. It passed on a voice vote with a simple majority, contingent on the resolution achieving the same.

On November 21, 2006, the full council met to vote on King’s resolution. About two dozen public supporters turned out, wearing stick-on ribbons that proclaimed “Justice for Patty.” Four women addressed the council about their own experiences of sexual assault; most of these occurred in other cities but, as with Patty, were made more horrific by the actions of those to whom they turned for help. “Every day I think about what happened to me and every day I wait for it to happen again,” said one speaker, whose greatest fear in this regard was “going to the police.”

King, not alone among his colleagues, was moved to tears. “This resolution has a title that [says] it’s about one woman,” he noted. “It’s been called the ‘Justice for Patty’ resolution, and it does some things for
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her. But I think the point of the public testimony you just heard . . . is that it is way beyond one person, and frankly I hope this is way beyond the city of Madison.”

One alderperson tried, without success, to remove the provision regarding Axley Brynelson, on grounds that this amounted to “passing the buck.” He thought the city, having hired the law firm to defend it, ought to shoulder all the blame. (This would presumably be fine with Axley, whose spokesperson told the press, “We did our job, we did it well, with the facts given at the time.”) Alderperson Thomas held her tongue, and the sole dissenter at the prior committee meeting was absent. The only alderperson who spoke against the resolution was Judy Compton, but even she supported most of its provisions, saying her quarrel was with the $35,000 payment. She worried that others, like the women who had just addressed the council,

“could come back and say, ‘You owe me money as well.’” Another alderperson responded by calling this restitution “a pittance” and “almost an insult.” The resolution passed on a vote of 15–2, with Compton and Thomas voting nay.

For Patty, the most important component was the change in police policy. “I’d like to see victims treated as victims, instead of criminals,”

she told a local TV station. As for the money, she was neither made whole nor insulted. In fact, she knew right away that she would use it for something practical and badly needed: a new truck for her vending business.

November 28, 2006

Chronology

Note: The tale told in this book includes a number of surprising developments, which this chronology necessarily reveals. Readers may prefer to let the story unfold without looking ahead to these developments as they are set forth here.

september 4, 1997 Patty is raped by an armed intruder in her east-side Madison home. Police are called and collect evidence.

september 8, 1997 Tom Woodmansee, a Madison police detective, begins work on the case. He becomes skeptical of Patty’s account and soon focuses his investigation on her.

october 2, 1997 Woodmansee summons Patty to a meeting at police headquarters under false pretences, where he and another detective, Linda Draeger, confront her with their conclusion that she lied about being raped.

They use pressure and deception to get her to recant. Afterward, Patty immediately renounces this recantation and returns to her original account.

october 22, 1997 The
Wisconsin State Journal
runs an article based on a police department press release, saying that a woman who reported being raped had admitted lying. Thus prompted, Patty writes two letters that she has delivered to Woodmansee’s supervisor, Lieutenant Dennis George Riley, complaining that she was compelled to recant. Riley gives these letters to Woodmansee.

october 24, 1997 Woodmansee forwards his case file to the Dane County District Attorney’s Office, recommending that Patty be prosecuted for obstructing an officer.

january 15, 1998 A criminal complaint against Patty is signed by Jill Karofsky, a Dane County deputy district attorney.

january and early february 1998 Patty, unaware of these impending charges, is interviewed by
Isthmus
newspaper after an acquaintance convinces her to go public with her story.
Isthmus
begins to investigate.

Riley tells the paper he has no recollection of Patty’s letters.

february 9, 1998 Patty is formally charged with obstruction, a misdemeanor.

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Chronology

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april 1, 1998
Isthmus,
through News Editor Bill Lueders, files a complaint against Riley with the Madison Police and Fire Commission (PFC), alleging that Riley violated department policy in failing to forward Patty’s letters to others in the department for investigation, as well as its rules regarding truthfulness.

may 1998 The PFC delays action, pending resolution of the criminal case against Patty.

june 29, 1998 The Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory reports finding semen on Patty’s bedsheet, after her defense attorney, former District Attorney Hal Harlowe, asks why this evidence was never analyzed. Police subsequently obtain DNA samples from the man Patty identified as a chief suspect, as well as her current and former boyfriends.

july 9, 1998 Dane County Circuit Court Judge Jack Aulik holds a hearing on Harlowe’s motion to suppress Patty’s confession. Within a week, Aulik issues a ruling denying this motion.

july 29, 1998 DNA tests conclusively exclude the three individuals from whom samples were obtained.

august 21, 1998 The charges against Patty are dismissed. The district attorney’s office admits it can’t prove its case “beyond a reasonable doubt”

but continues to suggest that Patty was lying about being raped.

september 30, 1998 The PFC dismisses the major part of
Isthmus
’s complaint against Riley, which alleged that he violated department rules regarding complaint acceptance and investigation.

october 15 and 22, 1998 A PFC hearing is held on the remaining part of
Isthmus
’s complaint against Riley, alleging untruthfulness.

november 2, 1998 Patty formally asks the Madison Police Department to have the state Division of Criminal Investigation reopen her rape complaint. She also asks that it investigate the conduct of Madison police but is told that this will not be done.

december 3, 1998 The PFC rules against
Isthmus.

december 14, 1998 Patty files her own PFC complaints against Riley and Woodmansee, alleging violations of department rules. The complaint against Riley is dismissed due to his retirement.

march 5, 1999 Special agent Elizabeth Feagles of the state Division of Criminal Investigation finally contacts Patty with regard to her sexual assault case. Over the next year, Feagles pursues numerous leads and obtains DNA samples from several suspects; none match.

may 18, 1999 The PFC dismisses Patty’s complaint.

november 17, 1999 Attorney Mike Short, representing Patty, files a
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lawsuit in federal court against three Madison detectives: Woodmansee, Draeger, and Lauri Schwartz, who did follow-up work on the case.

march‒ may 2000

Extensive depositions and other discovery are conducted in the civil case, by both sides. Patty is deposed three times, for a total of more than nineteen hours.

may 18, 2000 Federal Judge John Shabaz throws out Patty’s lawsuit.

may 29, 2001 A profile obtained five years earlier from a convicted sex offender is entered into a federal DNA data bank.

june 11, 2001 Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory contacts Feagles to report that DNA from this sex offender matches that found on Patty’s bedsheet.

august 2001 Judy Schwaemle of the Dane County District Attorney’s Office obtains transcripts of Patty’s deposition testimony from the federal lawsuit.