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NEW YORK – New York City Police Department Commissioner James O'Neill on a Sunday to a woman who came forward with a rape allegation in 1994 but was discredited by police, saying the department let her down "in almost every possible way." In a letter, O'Neill offered the woman his "heartfelt apology for all aspersions cast upon your credibility by NYPD staff those many years ago."
The woman, who is African-American, had the police in April 1994 that she had been in Prospect Park in Brooklyn when she was dragged into the bushes and raped.
She gave a detailed description which was the basis of a sketch, and DNA evidence was recovered, but no arrests were made.
A journalist columnist, Mike McAlary of the Daily News, wrote at the time that the source of the author of the story, the author of a story -lesbian violence.
The woman sued McAlary for libel, but a judge dismissed the case in part because McAlary had been relying on information from police. McAlary died in 1998.
The woman, now 52, said in an interview with the New York Times on Sunday that she was "caught by surprise" by the apology.
"I wanted to see this happen so that the NYPD would have a public stance in support of survivors, so that it would be a public statement that would make it clear that it was safe and beneficial for survivors to come forward to the police They would not be attacked or pilloried by the police, "she told the Times.
In January, police announced that the case had been cracked, that modern DNA analysis methods found in prison. He told police he was not involved in the 1994 attack.
A few days after that announcement, another official NYPD made an apology.
Deputy Commissioner John Miller feels a statement to the woman's lawyer that he was wrong to tell reporters that police doubted the woman's account. He was the chief police spokesman at the time.
In his apology letter on Sunday, O'Neill said, "We know the damage that sexual assaults inflict on survivors.Compounding that damage with insensitive comments and wild conspiracy theories only further increases the cruelty and injustice of the original crime itself. I am deeply and deeply sorry. "
CBS News does not normally identify victims of sexual assault.
© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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