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Eleven thousand untested rape kits were found in an abandoned warehouse near Detroit in 2009. For years, local authorities in the country have been working to secure the necessary funding to test their own backlog of untested kits.
The Manhattan District Attorney's Office is trying to help other jurisdictions facing a backlog by releasing $ 38 million over three years to pay for test kits and criminals brought to trial.
From 2015 to 2018, the Manhattan District District Attorney's Backlog Elimination Grant Clearance Program provided grants to 32 jurisdictions in 20 states, which allowed to test more than 55,000 kits.
In total, the results of these tests led to 186 arrests and 64 convictions.
ABC News, District Attorney for Manhattan
The backlog of untested sexual assault kits "perpetuated what I consider seismic injustice against sexual assault victims," said Cy Vance, District Attorney for Manhattan, at a conference Press.
In addition to dealing with specific cases, the evidence collected was added to the FBI's Combined DNA Indexing System (CODIS).
A report released Tuesday by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office indicates that 18,803 DNA profiles have been added to CODIS as a result of the tested rape kits, which will track criminals across state borders. .
Mary Altaffer / AP, FILE"A catalyst of hope"
A woman whose case was brought to trial following the testing of tested rap kits also spoke at Tuesday's press conference.
She was one of seven women raped by Nathan Loebe, a serial rapist in Arizona, who was convicted at the end of February for 12 counts of sexual assault, five kidnapping chiefs, three chiefs of criminal harassment and a charge of attempted sexual assault, according to the Associated Press, for cases occurring between 2003 and 2015.
Five years after Loebe raped her while she was on a date, the victim stated that she had been contacted by Pima County investigators who were investigating the case at following the granting of the grant awarded by the District Attorney's Office of Manhattan.
The victim stated that "I and eight brave women gathered together" to lay charges against Loebe.
"Having my kit tested has finally been a catalyst of hope," she said.
Money matters
Part of the $ 38 million spent by the Manhattan Attorney's Office has been extended to jurisdictions in 20 states, testing 55,252 kits.
A new report from Manhattan "has eliminated or is about to eliminate their arrears in the states, on at least seven states – Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, North Dakota, the United States, and the United States. Ohio, Oregon and Michigan "says DA.
The size and location of grants vary. The smallest amount, $ 163,590, was awarded to the Flint City Police Department to test 309 kits. The largest grant – $ 1,999,982 – was awarded to the Coordinating Council for Criminal Justice in Georgia and tested 3,462 kits.
The $ 38 million used in this program came from a somewhat unexpected source: funds for the forfeiture of criminal assets from transactions with international banks that violated US sanctions, the report says.
Without going into details, the report states that Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance has determined that these confiscated funds would be invested in "hard-hitting projects that improve public safety", and that the program of grants of $ 50,000 to Backlog elimination of sexual assault kits was created in 2015.
Kevin Hagen / AP
Grants were awarded in 2015, at a ceremony attended by activist and actress Mariska Hargitay and then vice president, Joe Biden, both of whom had forcefully declared that & # 39; 39, it was necessary to end the backlog of sexual assault kits.
How New York handled its backlog
The report details how New York City handled its own backlog of rape kits, adopting a so-called "forklift" approach to test the 17,000 kits on hold in 2000, the same year that it was. New York State joined CODIS.
ABC News, put an end to the backlog
New York City prosecutors have been able to create indictments for sex offenders, even when investigators have not been able to identify the perpetrators by their name, by filing a case around the DNA of a suspect.
An indictment "John Doe" allows prosecutors to open the case on time, even if the name of the assailant is not known during this period. Then, if the DNA profile receives access and identification at a later date via the CODIS system, the assailant may be linked to the existing John Doe "indictment" case.
At the press conference on Tuesday, Vance said that "specific funding sources are needed to end the backlog but that they are not … sufficient," adding that 39, he felt that states should change their laws.
Vance called on states to abolish their laws on sexual assault, to require timely testing on rape kits, to test all pending rape kits and to request the annual inventory of rape kits. late kits.
Combinations of gifts and work
In Wayne County, Michigan, where the abandoned warehouse contained 11,000 kits untested in 2009, the county attorney obtained funding for a random sample of 400 of these kits to test, the report said. According to the report, these tests "generated so many leads" that a subset of the Department of Justice funded testing of 1,600 other tests.
These results have identified 127 potential serial rapists, established links with crimes committed by 23 other states and 14 convictions.
At present, a combination of a private donor gift and a $ 4 million allocation from the Michigan State Legislature is being used to test all the remaining kits in the county. The Manhattan DA grant program allocated $ 1,996,991 to the Michigan State Police, which tested 3,440 kits.
This funding is vital because cost is one of the most mitigating factors that prevents rape kits from being tested. On average, the report says it costs between $ 1,000 and $ 1,500 to ship and test a kit, not to mention additional tests that must be performed by the presiding jurisdiction.
Ilse Knecht, Hargitay's Director of Policy and Advocacy, the Joyful Heart Foundation, called on all lawmakers to "see sexual violence as violent crime".
"We know the value of testing every rape kit.We know it's the right thing to do," Knecht said at Tuesday's press conference.
"We know that many rapists are serial offenders and do not stop until they are arrested," she said.
Aaron Katersky of ABC News contributed to this report.
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