Alleged De Anza Rape Case Unprosecuted, 1 Year Later
A year after several young women allegedly witnessed the rape of a 17-year-old girl by a De Anza College basketball player at a team party, as other team members watched, there is still no final decision about whether the case will be prosecuted.
After disagreement among Santa Clara County officials about whether to prosecute the controversial case, the California Attorney General’s Office is conducting an unusual review. But as of the one-year anniversary of the March 3, 2007 incident, the office apparently hasn’t yet decided what to do, reports the Mercury News.
As discussed in earlier ABAJournal.com posts, three students, who were members of the women’s soccer team at De Anza, took the unconscious alleged victim from the party to the hospital and want the case prosecuted. However, Santa Clara County District Attorney Dolores Carr decided not to prosecute, and requested the review by the attorney general when a public furor resulted.
“We did our own investigation early on,” John Cahners, an attorney who represents a baseball player whose parents own the home where the alleged rape took place, told a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle last year. “What we found was, no, we don’t think a crime did occur. But I am not going to drag a 17-year-old girl through the dirt to explain what we found.”
One of the three women had a different perspective: “She was literally lifeless,” the student told columnist C.W. Nevius. “Her eyes were completely shut. On the ride to the hospital, I had to keep my hand under her nose to make sure she was breathing.”
