Cry Rape: The True Story of One Woman's Harrowing Quest for Justice (20 page)

Later, this journal would be used as a weapon against her.

Now that the “criminal matter” had been resolved, I asked the Madison Police and Fire Commission to resume proceedings against Riley.

His attorney, Paul Schwarzenbart, responded by seeking dismissal of my complaint, claiming I lacked “standing”—that is, sufficient connection to the core events to bring an action. His argument: whether or not Riley followed department rules in how he handled Patty’s letters was not my concern.

I felt confident this reasoning would be rejected, since early on PFC attorney Scott Herrick explicitly assured me that standing would not be an issue. State law said the process was open to any “aggrieved person,” a seemingly broad category. Besides, as I noted in response to Schwarzenbart’s motion, my status as a named plaintiff in an open records lawsuit that led to a judge ordering police to release citizen complaints gave me “standing galore.” What good had it done to win this legal battle if police supervisors could suppress the most serious complaints without consequence?

Schwarzenbart, in his briefs to the PFC, reiterated his claim that Patty’s letter to Riley was not really a complaint “within the meaning of

[police department] rules.” And, after seeking to exclude all information about the alleged rape and subsequent investigation as irrelevant, he attached Judge Aulik’s ruling as proof that the police used no improper tactics. But his main contention was that “aggrieved person,” as defined elsewhere in the statutes, applied only to those who have sustained “a distinct and palpable injury” to their interests. My only interest was as a journalist who had made Patty’s “claim of sexual assault, and her prosecution for obstruction,
causes célèbres
in
Isthmus,
as a component of what appears to be an obsessive pattern of attacks on the professionalism of the [Madison Police Department] and the Dane County District Attorney’s Office.” The PFC said it needed time to decide this issue, but time was running out: Riley was planning to retire in January, after which the PFC’s authority to impose discipline would end.

On October 2, one year to the day after her forced recantation, Patty took a major step toward dealing with her pain and isolation. She attended the Take Back the Night antiviolence rally on the steps of the Capitol. Mayor Bauman was one of the invited speakers, and afterward 138

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Patty walked up to her and introduced herself. The mayor looked away as Patty talked, then left without listening to Patty and others in the portion of the program devoted to testimonials from survivors of sexual assault. It was the first time that Patty had spoken publicly about her experience. She joked about being glad she was visually impaired, since it meant she couldn’t see her audience. In halting, extemporaneous remarks, she talked about the hurt that came from not being believed and the toll it had taken. “I can’t get over what they’ve done to me,” she said.

“It scares me to death that this goes on.”

That same week, the PFC issued its decision. It denied Karofsky’s motion and allowed the part of my complaint that charged Riley had lied to me in denying knowledge of Patty’s letters to proceed. But the commission granted Schwarzenbart’s attempt to limit the scope of the issues, declaring the alleged sexual assault and police investigation irrelevant, and agreed that I lacked standing to complain about Riley’s possible violation of rules regarding complaint acceptance and investigation. “From the face of the complaint we conclude the complainant’s interest in these matters is generally not distinguishable from the interest of any other observer,” wrote PFC president Alan Seeger. “Our action does not preclude [Patty] from prosecuting her own complaint before us if she chooses to do so.”

Eisen, my editor, was incensed. He wrote a column lambasting this decision as contrary to “common sense and good public policy.” Hence-forth, he noted, using a real-life example, a citizen who saw a cop uri-nate in a drunk’s bottle could not complain to the PFC, since only the drunk had “standing.” Eisen said the commission’s five members had gotten “lost in the gossamer of lawyerly web spinning” and expressed doubt that I would win the remaining part of my complaint: “Riley is using the ‘I forgot’ defense, which is notoriously hard to puncture.” Privately he urged me to drop the whole thing. But, taking a cue from Patty, I didn’t.

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Losing Battles

“Like it or not, we are a society of rules. We set expectations for behavior, and prescribe consequences when these are violated. This is why we have police departments, to enforce the rules we have established. To this end, police have tremendous power—the power to arrest, to detain, to use deadly force. Because the police have so much power, it makes sense that police departments have their own set of rules governing how officers and supervisors are expected to behave.”

Thus began my opening remarks before the Madison Police and Fire Commission on October 15, 1998. They were the same words I had planned to use four months earlier, when hearings on my complaint against Riley were originally slated. Now, of course, the matter before the PFC was much narrower and harder to prove. I cited the Madison Police Department’s rule that officers “tell the truth at all times and under all circumstances, whether under oath or otherwise.” This was the obligation Riley was under the previous February, when he denied knowing about Patty’s letters. I intended to show this was not a true statement, since Riley had received these letters and discussed them with at least two others: Woodmansee and Captain Jeff LaMar. Moreover, just days before my call, Riley had spoken to two health-care professionals in response to issues I had raised, which were the same as those in Patty’s letters.

“Lieutenant Riley’s peers will affirm that he is a good and distinguished officer,” I told the commission, Patty seated at the table beside me. “I don’t dispute that. But I believe Lieutenant Riley did lie to me.

He told me something that was untrue in order to cover his involvement 139

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in an investigation in which a lot of untrue things were said, and a lot of rules were broken. I urge you to hold him accountable.”

None of the PFC’s five citizen members, appointed by the mayor to three-year terms, had any expertise in police or fire issues. Seeger was a UW–Madison library services assistant and twice-unsuccessful candi-date for city council. The others were an attorney, a utility executive, a state analyst, and Margaret McMurray, the former head of the Wisconsin chapter of the National Organization for Women. Earlier, McMurray had told Kilmark, the financial consultant, that the PFC would wel-come a chance to weigh in on Patty’s case. Kilmark passed this on to Patty, who was heartened.

Schwarzenbart, in his opening remarks, called Riley a “trustworthy and honest” officer with thirty-one years on the job and ridiculed my remaining cause of action as alleging “a Machiavellian cover-up that belies common sense.” Riley, beside him, looked indignant.

During the next several hours I called six witnesses, five of whom—

including the chief of police—were on Riley’s side. (The exception was Jill Poarch, who was neutral.) Schwarzenbart made dozens of objections, usually to allege I was straying into issues the PFC had declared off-limits. Several times the entire commission and attorney Herrick retired into an adjourning room to deliberate before issuing a ruling.

The PFC gave me more latitude than Schwarzenbart wanted, but the hearing was fractured by constant interruptions.

LaMar, Riley’s immediate supervisor, testified that he had gotten calls from concerned residents of Patty’s neighborhood and thus told Woodmansee he wanted to put out a press release if the rape report proved false, “which isn’t all that uncommon.” Pressed to be specific about the volume of calls, which Woodmansee had reputedly called

“a ton,” LaMar placed the number at “two or three.” Shortly after this release was issued, Riley had come to him with Patty’s letters. LaMar instructed that this correspondence, which they discussed, be put in the case file “so that the district attorney would be aware of it.”

Woodmansee, taking his turn on the witness stand, confirmed that Riley had left him Patty’s letters along with a note. They subsequently had a “sixty-second-or-less conversation” about the letters and concluded they were “indicative of the concerns that we had” about Patty’s mental health. Woodmansee said he misunderstood Riley’s instruction
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to forward the letters to the district attorney’s office and instead put them into a file that remained at his desk. Schwarzenbart asked whether Woodmansee’s report was by this time already “in the hands of the DA’s office,” to underscore that forwarding the letters would be an additional task. “That’s correct,” answered Woodmansee.

Lieutenant Patrick Malloy of the department’s Professional Standards Unit said it would have been “appropriate” for Riley to have given the letters to him. He even told Riley, when the letters were located after my inquiries in early February, that he wished he had known about them earlier.

Poarch confirmed having spoken with Riley about Patty’s case shortly before he had denied knowing about the letters. Chief Williams had trouble recalling his encounters with Riley, in part because he had suffered a mild stroke that June. (This happened just days after he drew national attention when a 9-millimeter handgun he had stashed in his oven for safekeeping went off as he roasted a turkey, firing a bullet into a banister.)

I asked each police witness whether Riley had an unusually poor memory; all said he did not, even as they recalled, in detail, conversations he had completely forgotten. Schwarzenbart, in turn, asked each witness about Riley’s “reputation within the department for truthfulness.” It was, said Woodmansee, “outstanding.”

Perhaps the most extraordinary witness was Deputy District Attorney Jill Karofsky, who said it would have made no difference had she gotten Patty’s letters at the time they were sent, instead of several months later. She would have taken into account “all the inconsistent statements in the police reports” as well as the fact that Patty confessed and would have “come to the conclusion that she lied.” After her testimony, Karofsky walked to the back of the hearing room and received a high five from someone who had come to watch.

The hearing adjourned until the following week. I was discouraged.

None of my own witnesses supported the conclusion that Riley lied; I couldn’t be sure of it myself. Besides, whether or not a police supervisor fibbed to a reporter was hardly the most urgent issue. I was only fighting this battle because the PFC threw out the rest of my case—and because James Friedman, my attorney helper, thought I might not be able to appeal that decision until this part was played out.

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I considered dropping my complaint and almost did. But then Herrick told me I was doing “a really good job” presenting my case. I decided to stick it out; after all, Herrick knew what the commissioners were saying when they scurried off behind closed doors. Perhaps they were finding significance in the large number of conversations that Riley would have had to forget in order to draw a blank when asked about Patty’s letters.

That week Patty wrote a note to Karofsky, with a copy to Nicks. She expressed her objections to Karofsky’s “public speech on all my wrongs,”

saying she was “horrified to hear how little regard every last one of you admitted to giving my very serious complaint.” Patty told her former prosecutors that the “financial and emotional devastation” she endured, as well as damage to “the reputation of the DA’s office,” could have been avoided if police had sent her bedding to the crime lab for analysis early on. “The delivery cost would have been the same,” she noted. Karofsky and Nicks did not respond.

The second and final PFC hearing took place on October 22. Colleen O’Brien of Meriter Hospital said she had spoken to Riley about Patty’s case on February 4, the day before my call to him. My own account of Riley’s response when I asked him about and read portions of Patty’s letters was submitted as an affidavit, on which I was cross-examined. Then it was the defense’s turn.

Schwarzenbart called several police witnesses to testify about contacts they had with Riley regarding my call. His office mate, Lieutenant John Davenport, said Riley was “upset” after this conversation. Why would he be upset, unless he knew what he told me was untrue? After all, he supposedly had no recollection of these letters, and I did not contradict him, since I had not yet learned that he was the person who received them.

Riley, testifying in his own defense, explained it like this: “My concern was that if I had a complaint against one of my detectives I was upset that I didn’t know about it.” He said he personally retrieved the letters—contrary to what Malloy said about locating the letters himself—and contacted both assistant chiefs and Chief Williams to let them know what transpired. He never tried setting the record straight with me because he didn’t think it would make any difference.

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At the end of this hearing, both Schwarzenbart and I asked to make oral closing arguments. But the PFC insisted on written briefs. I argued that it was not plausible that a police supervisor who no one thought had a bad memory would completely forget letters alleging serious misconduct that he read and discussed with others. Schwarzenbart, in a twenty-five-page brief and twelve-page reply brief, said there was no reason for Riley to remember, since there was nothing unusual about a suspect recanting a confession. Moreover, Riley had “no logical reason to lie,” since he never considered the letters a complaint. And again, after blocking me from exploring these issues, Schwarzenbart cited Judge Aulik’s ruling as proof that Patty’s confession was properly obtained.

I anticipated losing, but I didn’t know how badly. The PFC’s decision was scathing. Some cases, it said, came down to conflicting evidence or a complainant’s proof falling short of what’s needed, but not this one: “In this case, we find
no evidence other than the Complainant’s
opinion testimony
that Respondent lied to the Complainant, that is, deliberately misrepresented a fact. In our view,
all
evidence is fully consistent with Respondent’s explanation that he may have had a lapse of memory.” (Emphasis in original.) The PFC found Riley’s “explanation of forgetfulness or inadvertence fully credible and reasonable.”