In Attacks on Disabled, Few Verdicts
Despite evidence, law enforcement drops most cases
By Raja Mishra, Globe Staff
Originally published in The Boston Globe, June 10, 2001
In Massachusetts, predators have been raping, beating, and robbing the disabled with little fear of being caught and even less of being punished.
A Globe review of state documents has found that from 1997 to 1999 the state investigated 342 crimes against the disabled, and only 18—or about 5 percent—ended with a conviction.
In all 342 cases, specially trained investigators found strong evidence of crimes. They forwarded evidence to police and prosecutors. But in the hands of law enforcement, most cases were dropped.
By contrast, about 70 percent of crimes involving able-bodied victims resulted in convictions during that period.
Last year, a reform plan spearheaded by prosecutors resulted in an increase in arrests for such crimes. It is too soon, however, to determine if convictions will increase.
On the sad docket of crimes against the disabled are cases like that of a 36-year-old Dorchester woman who is severely retarded and uses a wheelchair. In March 1998, a coterie of doctors, police, and social workers concluded she was raped.
In her thick stutter, she named a caretaker at her state-funded residence as the assailant. But there was no conviction, no prosecution, no arrest. Because of her disabilities, the woman, whose name is being withheld for privacy, would be a liability in court, police decided. Case closed.
"Cases like that are very difficult to prosecute. In essence, we don't have the luxury of relying on the testimony of the victim," recalled the lead detective, then a member of the Boston police's sex crimes unit. "We thought that putting her on the stand would hurt her even more," he said.
For the disabled, this is justice as usual.
"For once in my life, I should have asked questions" of the police, said the woman's mother. "But I didn't."
In 107 cases reviewed in detail by the Globe, the prime suspects were usually taxpayer-funded caretakers: nurses, counselors, and orderlies. More than half the cases involved sex crimes. State statistics indicate this pattern holds for the other 235 cases, for which reliable records were not available.
Often, the Globe found, police and prosecutors refused to proceed because of concerns about how disabled or retarded victims would hold up in court. Sometimes, lack of coordination between social workers and law enforcement left cases in limbo.
And in the rare instances of a conviction, the results were mixed: An Oxford man convicted of binding and sexually assaulting a young retarded woman behind a convenience store received just two years' probation with no prison time.
Strongest cases
In 1997, 32 criminal cases were referred to police and prosecutors by the Disabled Persons Protection Commission, a state agency created in 1987 to protect the rights of the disabled. None resulted in prosecution.
In 1998, 86 cases were referred, resulting in nine convictions. Five are pending. The rest produced no action. In 1999, 238 cases were referred; there were nine convictions and nine cases are pending.
The cases handled by the Quincy-based agency represent about a fifth of the total involving disabled or retarded victims. The rest were dealt with by other social service agencies or went straight to police.
The protection commission is considered the state's premier investigatory agency for these types of cases, and its investigations were typically thorough, with detailed interviews, background checks, site visits, and victim statements when possible. Investigators discarded cases where the evidence was deemed weak.
In short, these 342 cases were the state's strongest cases involving disabled victims, said prosecutors, police, social workers, and state officials.
Yet only 5 percent resulted in convictions.
Caught in a Catch-22
For disabled victims, abuse is a Catch-22. They usually are incapable of protecting themselves from attack—and then, according to police and prosecutors, their handicaps make it very difficult to use their testimony in a criminal case. Many, like the 36-year-old rape victim, are almost mute. Others can talk but have limited memories and weak reasoning skills.
Victim statements, especially in sexual assault cases, are crucial. Authorities worry juries will discount the testimony of the mentally disabled, or that defense lawyers will savage them during cross-examination.
"We have a duty to make sure that witnesses and victims have the abiltiy to effectively perceive and recollect," said Michael Uhlarik, chief of the elders and persons with disabilites unit of the Suffolk district attorney's office.
"We try to be as diligent as we can in preparing these cases, at the same time fulfilling our obligation that we have sufficent evidence to support our case," he said. "We have to consider the disabilites involved and the communication difficulties they present."
But advocates for the disabled worry that prosecutors are being too cautious.
"Because they've never worked with the disabled, they presume that they might not be good witnesses," said Leo Sarkissian, executive director of ARC-Mass., a local advocacy group for the disabled.
Another problem is late reporting of crimes, as was the case with the 36-year-old. There, physical evidence, so crucial in a rape, may have been washed away. Prosecutors say evidence is often lost because those who care for the disabled are unschooled in basic crime-solving.
Reform plan
In 1997, the public was shocked by media reports of the torture of two retarded men in a Raynham home and the rape of a retarded woman at a state school in Waltham. Lawmakers issued a scathing critique of the way the state handled crimes against the disabled.
A panel of prosecutors and specialists conducted a complete review. They drafted a "memo of understanding" that outlined a reform plan. Last year, the state's social service agencies and 12 district attorneys signed onto it.
Under the new system, most cases involving the disabled will theoretically flow through the protection commission, whose staff is required to work closely with law enforcement.
"It's the first time we're working together with the same common goal," said Elizabeth D. Scheibel, district attorney for Hampshire and Franklin counties and chairwoman of the reform panel.
Uhlarik concurred: "In the past, the civil agencies did their thing, the police and DAs did their thing. We were shutting each other out of our experiences."
This summer, Uhlarik will prosecute his first case under the new system. However, in cases involving the disabled, convictions can produce unexpected results.
In September 1997, investigators looked into an alleged sexual assault behind a Cumberland Farms store in Oxford. A 21-year-old mildly retarded woman reported that she had been duct-taped to a tree and molested, then sexually assaulted in a nearby parked van and again in an empty building.
The assailant, she said, was a man named "Dick." Police arrested Richard Ayotte, 60, a local drifter, who was charged with indecent assault and battery and indecent assault and battery on a mentally retarded person—each punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Ayotte's lawyer argued the two were friends and that the sex was consensual. The man had no previous criminal history and was himself "slow," though there was no formal diagnosis.
The result, a plea bargain: two years probation and no jail time.
