Texas Rape Victim Was Jailed for Fear She Would Not Testify, Lawsuit Says [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

Source: New York Times

Texas Rape Victim Was Jailed for Fear She Would Not Testify, Lawsuit Says
The New York Times
By DANIEL VICTOR
7 hrs ago

A rape victim who was jailed in Texas for nearly a month because prosecutors feared she would not return to testify after having a mental breakdown on the stand has sued the Harris County district attorney’s office, county officials and jail employees.

The woman, identified as Jane Doe in the lawsuit, was held in the general population at the county jail — the same place where the rape suspect, Keith Hendricks, was housed. There, the suit says, she was misclassified as the perpetrator of a sexual assault — not as a victim — attacked by an inmate, denied medication and punched in the face by a guard.

Jane Doe’s treatment amounted to “an absolute deprivation of her personal integrity,” her lawyer, Sean Buckley, said in an interview Thursday. “As a rape victim, the psychological trauma she experienced was an overwhelming sense of hopelessness and helplessness.”

“And if you take out the sexual violation itself and you look at the underlying psychological trauma,” he added, “this is exactly what these defendants did to her again while she was still in recovery for her rape.”


Read more: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/texas-rape-victim-was-jailed-for-fear-she-would-not-testify-lawsuit-says/ar-BBuEM2W?li=BBnb4R7