NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill finally apologized on Sunday to the woman involved in the 1994 Prospect Park rape case — saying there is “zero justification for the additional trauma she endured when her word was doubted by authorities.”
“The [survivor] suffered a terrible ordeal when she was brutally violated,” wrote the city’s top cop in a letter published on NYC.gov.
He noted how Daily News columnist Mike McAlary “predicted in print that she would soon be arrested for filing a false report” in a story that the newspaper headlined, “Rape hoax the real crime.”
“This woman’s pain was only made worse by our collective actions, which were and always will be wholly antithetical to the values of the NYPD,” O’Neill said. “She had the courage and strength to report a heinous crime, to push our detectives to conduct a full and thorough investigation, and to try to help apprehend her attacker and protect other women. But we let her down in almost every possible way.”
O’Neill added, “We were wrong then. I want us to be right today.”
The woman involved has remained anonymous for more than 23 years after telling police in April 1994 that she had been dragged into the bushes of Prospect Park and raped on her walk home.
No arrests were ever made in her case — even after she provided a detailed description for a sketch and DNA evidence was recovered.
Police officials, such as then NYPD spokesman John Miller, publicly cast doubt on the woman’s story at the time.
McAlary, who died in 1998, claimed the victim made the entire story up in an effort to draw attention to a protest against anti-lesbian violence that she was participating in. He cited unnamed police sources.
“I am deeply saddened by the rift this case created between law enforcement, brave survivors of sexual assault, and the LGBTQ community, with whom we work so closely each day,” O’Neill said. “And I want to be clear: We take what happened to the victim of the brutal assault that night in Prospect Park, and to others every year, extremely seriously. But in this case, we fell short in an important area: Simple humanity.”
Former NYPD Police Commissioner Bill Bratton had apologized to the victim after the Daily News column first appeared in print, saying “that in terms of any police role in this, it should not have been.” But the department never issued a formal apology.
It wasn’t until after the NYPD’s Cold Case Squad took another look at the evidence and successfully linked the crime to serial rapist James Edward Webb — using DNA analysis — that they finally decided to right their wrong.
“As Police Commissioner, I extend my heartfelt apology for all aspersions cast upon your credibility by NYPD personnel those many years ago,” 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 amplifies the cruelty and injustice of the initial crime itself. For that, I am deeply and profoundly sorry.”