Pa. Rape Victim Criminally Charged With Lying Loses Damages Case
A Pennsylvania woman criminally charged with making a false police report of being raped at gunpoint before authorities realized she was, in fact, telling the truth has lost her attempt to hold the municipality civilly liable.
A damages suit filed against Cranberry and its police department by the woman has been dismissed by a U.S. District Court judge in Pittsburgh, reports the Post-Gazette. The victim earlier obtained a $45,000 settlement from Butler County.
She spent five days in jail, while pregnant, and was herself accused of stealing $606.73 that the rapist took from the service station at which she worked, losing her job as a result, the newspaper reports. Only when she was about to stand trial in 2005 on theft, receiving stolen property and false report charges was she exonerated—after police caught a Dauphin County man in the act of raping a woman at a Jefferson County convenience store.
He subsequently confessed the earlier rape against the Cranberry victim, the Post-Gazette reports.
While the victim’s situation was “horrible and unfortunate,” township manager Jerry Andree tells the newspaper, the federal court’s decision “shows that what happened didn’t rise to the level of the police being legally liable.”
