titantoo
05-03-2005, 06:46 AM
April 29, 2005
Prosecutor Seeks Unlimited Time in Rape Cases
By JULIA PRESTON (http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?ppds=bylL&v1=JULIA%20PRESTON&fdq=19960101&td=sysdate&sort=newest&ac=JULIA%20PRESTON&inline=nyt-per)
The case of Fletcher A. Worrell, a rape suspect whose DNA prosecutors have linked to at least 25 rapes and sexual assaults over three decades, has focused new scrutiny on New York's five-year statute of limitations for sex crimes.
Manhattan prosecutors said yesterday that in the last two days, several women have called the authorities to say they believe that Mr. Worrell attacked them as well. But the crimes took place so long ago that prosecutors cannot bring charges.
Two of the 25 crimes Mr. Worrell has been linked to occurred in New York. They are not subject to the statute of limitations because Mr. Worrell has already been tried in both cases and was awaiting retrial when he fled. The other crimes took place in New Jersey and Maryland, and those states have no statutes of limitations that apply to those cases.
But in other New York sex assault cases that might be worth pursuing despite the lapse of time, prosecutors' hands are tied. One such case was brought to prosecutors' attention on Wednesday, said Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney, when a man called to say his wife had screamed "that's him" when she saw Mr. Worrell's photograph in the newspapers.
According to prosecutors who interviewed the woman Wednesday afternoon, she told them of an attack in an apartment building in Lower Manhattan in 1973. The assailant held a knife to her but she fought him off, said prosecutors, adding that they determined that her account was credible.
Manhattan prosecutors said a second woman called yesterday morning from Florida to say she believed that Mr. Worrell was the man who attacked her in Queens in the early 1970's, when she was 16 years old. She was referred to Queens authorities. Mr. Morgenthau called yesterday for the New York statute of limitations to be abolished for violent sexual assaults. "People's memories fade over time," he said. "DNA does not."
Over the past five years, Manhattan prosecutors said, they have had to close 690 sexual assault cases in which they had solid leads based on DNA evidence because the crimes fell outside the statutory limit. In many of the cases, suspects had been identified. The closed cases included 19 sexual assaults that were committed, the DNA and crime scene evidence showed, by a small number of repeat offenders, prosecutors said.
Statutes of limitations have been standard in many states to spare suspects the eternal threat of prosecution in cases where the police make no progress. The statutes are based in part on the idea that witnesses' memories grow too dim with time to be reliable. There is no statute of limitations for homicide in any state.
The statute of limitations in New York is five years for first-degree sexual assault, but it can be extended by a court to 10 years if the suspect's whereabouts are not known.
One way of keeping cases from expiring under the statute is to indict an unidentified DNA profile obtained from evidence collected from victims or at the scene of a crime. That way, if an assailant whose DNA matched the profile were ever caught, he could be prosecuted even if the statute of limitations had expired.
The Manhattan district attorney's office has obtained 31 of these indictments, known as John Doe indictments, in sex cases. But it started seeking such indictments only in 2000. The DNA link to Mr. Worrell, who is also known as Clarence Williams, was a fluke for cold-case investigators in Manhattan.
Mr. Worrell, now 58, jumped bail in 1978 and vanished as he was facing retrial in the two sexual assaults in New York City dating in the early 1970's, long before DNA identification was a common prosecutorial tool.
Mr. Worrell was arrested last October after a routine background check when he tried to buy a shotgun in Georgia. As prosecutors were preparing to extradite him to New York, they had another stroke of luck: a legal file from one of the rape cases, now 32 years old, included the victim's underwear, with DNA material from the assailant.
Mr. Worrell's DNA profile, run through a federal databank, then linked him to 21 rape cases in Montgomery County, in Maryland, between 1987 and 1991, and two 1993 rapes in Morris County, in New Jersey. One attack took place in Parsippany in June and the second in Morris Township in August, according to local newspaper accounts from the time.
In calling for the statute to be repealed, Mr. Morgenthau cited the case of Terence Reid, who pleaded guilty to first-degree sexual abuse after he attacked two women in a Manhattan hotel in 1997. He was given a maximum sentence of seven years in prison.
A DNA sample taken from Mr. Reid after his conviction tied him to a burglary, for which he was sentenced to 15 more years. But the sample also linked him to seven rapes in Manhattan in 1991 and 1992, Mr. Morgenthau said, crimes for which he can no longer be indicted.
Mr. Worrell's case has highlighted the vast nationwide backlog in DNA processing, federal officials said.
The next step is for local authorities to come forward with unsolved rapes that follow Mr. Worrell's modus operandi: he crept in through open doors and windows at night, using a knife. But many local police departments are far behind in culling and processing DNA samples from criminal evidence.
Federal justice officials estimate that as many as 300,000 samples have been taken from convicted violent offenders nationwide but have not been processed.
Prosecutor Seeks Unlimited Time in Rape Cases
By JULIA PRESTON (http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?ppds=bylL&v1=JULIA%20PRESTON&fdq=19960101&td=sysdate&sort=newest&ac=JULIA%20PRESTON&inline=nyt-per)
The case of Fletcher A. Worrell, a rape suspect whose DNA prosecutors have linked to at least 25 rapes and sexual assaults over three decades, has focused new scrutiny on New York's five-year statute of limitations for sex crimes.
Manhattan prosecutors said yesterday that in the last two days, several women have called the authorities to say they believe that Mr. Worrell attacked them as well. But the crimes took place so long ago that prosecutors cannot bring charges.
Two of the 25 crimes Mr. Worrell has been linked to occurred in New York. They are not subject to the statute of limitations because Mr. Worrell has already been tried in both cases and was awaiting retrial when he fled. The other crimes took place in New Jersey and Maryland, and those states have no statutes of limitations that apply to those cases.
But in other New York sex assault cases that might be worth pursuing despite the lapse of time, prosecutors' hands are tied. One such case was brought to prosecutors' attention on Wednesday, said Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney, when a man called to say his wife had screamed "that's him" when she saw Mr. Worrell's photograph in the newspapers.
According to prosecutors who interviewed the woman Wednesday afternoon, she told them of an attack in an apartment building in Lower Manhattan in 1973. The assailant held a knife to her but she fought him off, said prosecutors, adding that they determined that her account was credible.
Manhattan prosecutors said a second woman called yesterday morning from Florida to say she believed that Mr. Worrell was the man who attacked her in Queens in the early 1970's, when she was 16 years old. She was referred to Queens authorities. Mr. Morgenthau called yesterday for the New York statute of limitations to be abolished for violent sexual assaults. "People's memories fade over time," he said. "DNA does not."
Over the past five years, Manhattan prosecutors said, they have had to close 690 sexual assault cases in which they had solid leads based on DNA evidence because the crimes fell outside the statutory limit. In many of the cases, suspects had been identified. The closed cases included 19 sexual assaults that were committed, the DNA and crime scene evidence showed, by a small number of repeat offenders, prosecutors said.
Statutes of limitations have been standard in many states to spare suspects the eternal threat of prosecution in cases where the police make no progress. The statutes are based in part on the idea that witnesses' memories grow too dim with time to be reliable. There is no statute of limitations for homicide in any state.
The statute of limitations in New York is five years for first-degree sexual assault, but it can be extended by a court to 10 years if the suspect's whereabouts are not known.
One way of keeping cases from expiring under the statute is to indict an unidentified DNA profile obtained from evidence collected from victims or at the scene of a crime. That way, if an assailant whose DNA matched the profile were ever caught, he could be prosecuted even if the statute of limitations had expired.
The Manhattan district attorney's office has obtained 31 of these indictments, known as John Doe indictments, in sex cases. But it started seeking such indictments only in 2000. The DNA link to Mr. Worrell, who is also known as Clarence Williams, was a fluke for cold-case investigators in Manhattan.
Mr. Worrell, now 58, jumped bail in 1978 and vanished as he was facing retrial in the two sexual assaults in New York City dating in the early 1970's, long before DNA identification was a common prosecutorial tool.
Mr. Worrell was arrested last October after a routine background check when he tried to buy a shotgun in Georgia. As prosecutors were preparing to extradite him to New York, they had another stroke of luck: a legal file from one of the rape cases, now 32 years old, included the victim's underwear, with DNA material from the assailant.
Mr. Worrell's DNA profile, run through a federal databank, then linked him to 21 rape cases in Montgomery County, in Maryland, between 1987 and 1991, and two 1993 rapes in Morris County, in New Jersey. One attack took place in Parsippany in June and the second in Morris Township in August, according to local newspaper accounts from the time.
In calling for the statute to be repealed, Mr. Morgenthau cited the case of Terence Reid, who pleaded guilty to first-degree sexual abuse after he attacked two women in a Manhattan hotel in 1997. He was given a maximum sentence of seven years in prison.
A DNA sample taken from Mr. Reid after his conviction tied him to a burglary, for which he was sentenced to 15 more years. But the sample also linked him to seven rapes in Manhattan in 1991 and 1992, Mr. Morgenthau said, crimes for which he can no longer be indicted.
Mr. Worrell's case has highlighted the vast nationwide backlog in DNA processing, federal officials said.
The next step is for local authorities to come forward with unsolved rapes that follow Mr. Worrell's modus operandi: he crept in through open doors and windows at night, using a knife. But many local police departments are far behind in culling and processing DNA samples from criminal evidence.
Federal justice officials estimate that as many as 300,000 samples have been taken from convicted violent offenders nationwide but have not been processed.