Editor’s note: After years of court battles, the case against a 17-year-old Mountain View High student convicted of attempting to rape a 15-year-old classmate in 1997 was expunged in court and police records.
OREM — An Orem man convicted more than two years ago of attempted rape alleges in a federal lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for Utah that Orem police and a Utah County prosecutor tried to cover up critical evidence that may have proved him innocent.
The man, 22, contends Orem detectives and Utah County Deputy Attorney Sherry Ragan colluded to hide evidence in the high-profile case.
In the suit filed earlier this month, the man’s family says they asked several times between December 1997 and May 1999 to be given access to a vial of the victim's blood and the undergarments worn by the man and the victim the night of the alleged attack.
"The analysis of (the victim's) blood was ordered to determine the type and amount of drugs she voluntarily ingested the night of the alleged incident," the suit says.
"This information was critical to determine (the victim's) perception, judgment and memory ability . . . and to challenge (her) credibility since she had maintained she took no drugs that night."
After repeated requests and a court order to allow the defense to review evidence, the Orem Department of Public Safety allowed access on July 29, 1999 — just two working days before the trial. The vial of the victim's blood and both undergarments were missing, according to the suit.
The family alleges at the time of trial police told them the blood sample had been destroyed.
The man’s mother says she visited the Utah State Crime Laboratory about a year after her son's trial. She says the victim's blood sample and undergarments were at the facility and that neither had been tested.
The man’s mother charges in the suit she has evidence that Ragan told the state lab not to conduct the tests.
Lt. Doug Edwards, spokesman for the Orem Police Department, said it is department policy not to comment on the specifics of a pending suit but cautioned that allegations should not be taken as truth until proven in court.
Ragan denies the family's claims of a conspiracy.
"I've never ordered any evidence to be destroyed," she said.
The victim's blood was not tested for drugs, Ragan said, because the victim, then 15, admitted in court that she took prescription painkillers earlier that night.
Ragan said the man admitted during a preliminary hearing that the blood on his boxer shorts was the girl's so prosecutors saw no need to test the blood.
The timing of the incident drew considerable attention.
The man was the second athlete that year to be accused of sexual assault. A fellow Mountain View High School athlete grabbed headlines in the fall of 1997 when an outraged mother sent letters about an alleged sexual assault on her daughter to news reporters and government officials.
At the time, the man was 17 and "looking forward" to his senior year at Mountain View High School.
"We were looking to win the state (basketball) competition that year," the man told the Deseret News last week.
All that changed in November of that year. That's when the man and the girl met at a late-night house party.
Another teen told police that she saw the man and the girl go into the bathroom, where they were seen kissing. Later, a partygoer tried the bathroom door, only to find it locked.
The victim told police that she and the man got into his car, drove a few blocks and parked in a church parking lot. The girl claimed the man raped her in the back seat after she repeatedly told him to stop.
The man still maintains the sexual activity in the back seat of his car was consensual. A jury, though, was not convinced.
After being ordered to stand trial as an adult, a jury found the man guilty of a lesser charge of attempted rape and he was sentenced to one year in the county jail and ordered to pay the victim restitution and undergo sex offender counseling.
The man said he was taken off probation last month.
The father of the victim expressed disappointment in the family's suit. "We wish no ill will, absolutely none, towards the [family]," the father said. "We hope the parents can accept the responsibility and move forward."
The man’s mother maintains the suit is not about revenge. They want the truth, the family says.
The man has appealed his conviction to the Utah Court of Appeals and has also filed an appeal challenging Judge Sterling B. Sainsbury's decision to try him as an adult.
Ragan said the county plans to file a response to the suit within a few weeks.
E-mail: gfattah@desnews.com
