Victim/Suspect (2023) Movie Script

1
Me and him
weren't really dating,
but I had a crush on him,
and since, like, they saw it as, like,
oh, like, you were in a relationship.
That
that just happens in relationships, like
But I was, like, 12, so I told them,
I was, like,
"That that shouldn't have happened."
Was there a point, like,
with the investigation
where you felt, like, the police just
you knew they weren't believing you and--
The detective told me,
"He didn't hold you down.
That's not rape."
She filed the charges against me
before my rape kit
or anything else came in.
They just didn't believe me
from the start.
I have a list of more than
a hundred other cases that I'm following,
so, we can keep talking
if that sounds okay with you.
The evidence
in this case is notjiving
with your side of the story.
I want you to really
tell me the truth
because I have this on video.
I don't believe you.
I do not believe you at all.
If you continue to lie to me,
this is about to go south.
I don't know.
Everything was good.
Consensual.
You guys had sex.
Both you guys are grown adults.
It appears that you were using
the threat of rape
to get what you wanted.
It's a crime
to file that false report.
I have to arrest you for it.
Here at the Student Health Center
is where physical therapy students
get to put their knowledge
into into practice.
I couldn't say that word.
Here at the physical therapy center
Oh. That's not right.
Here at the physical No, no, no.
Here at the Student Health Center
Here at the Student Health Center
is where physical therapy students
get to put their knowledge
into practice. They get
Well, I started journalism in high school
working at the local news station.
One more time.
My first investigative piece
was looking into a pothole
and why it never got fixed.
And actually, after I published it,
it did get fixed, and that felt very good.
But nobody like
The stakes were very low.
Although people
were getting into accidents.
It was like It was a big pothole.
Speed limit signs that are white,
like this one behind me,
mean they have to be enforced,
but if their street surveys
aren't up-to-date,
police officers can't use
radar or laser technologies
to pull someone over.
This was easy stuff, not controversial.
Lucy's only been at the Harbor Shelter
for two weeks
but has become
the third adopted dog today.
As an aspiring journalist,
my dream was to work
at the Center for Investigative Reporting
just outside of Oakland.
I was, like, that's the
that's the most serious place you can go.
You know, it's like that
and 60 Minutes or something.
I knew it as this amazing organization
where the best journalists go to work.
After a couple attempts,
I landed an entry-level job.
I was working on other people's stories,
so I really wanted to find something
that I could own, that I could report on.
I was searching through local news
when I stumbled on a story
of a young woman being arrested
for making a false report of rape.
A 20-year-old student claiming
she'd been raped after a party
involving the Sacred Heart University
football team.
But tonight
Nikki Yovino ischarged
with making it all up
and then fabricating the evidence.
These kinds of allegations,
what they do is they
They're problematic
for the people that are accused.
And also,
for all the other cases out there
that are legitimate MeToo cases
where there are cases of assault,
it really muddies the waters
in such a dangerous,dangerous way.
Nikki Yovino's case was covered
all over national and local media
at the height
of the MeToo movement in 2017.
Nikki was looking at up to a year
in prison for the false reporting charge.
And five more years
for tampering with evidence
because she got a rape kit exam.
That sounded really punitive.
I thought Nikki's case was an anomaly,
but then I found another case
a thousand miles away.
Eighteen-year-old UA student Emma Mannion
told police she was forced
into a vehicle and sexually assaulted.
Today, Mannion sits behind bars.
after being charged
with false reporting to law enforcement.
When a false report is made like this,
then the person that makes the report
such as that, well,
they need to suffer the consequences.
Filing a false report
is a Class A misdemeanor
punishable up to one year in jail.
I gathered
all the material I could find,
and I took the story to my editorial team.
Rae brought the story
to a couple of editors,
and there was a lot of skepticism
Which I understand.
I mean, it's a it's
it takes a lot to green-light a story
because you know we're investing
incredible time, incredible resources.
In the cases Rae was looking at, uh,
the women had pled guilty.
And so, there was there was sort of
a knee-jerk sense, well, they pled guilty.
They admitted it.
There There's no story here.
She lied
about being raped
Nikki pled guilty
and went to prison.
Emma also pled guilty.
But when I spoke to them, they both
maintained that the assaults did happen.
I didn't lie to the police about anything.
I didn't lie
to the detective about anything.
I didn't lie
What happened during
those police interrogations?
Even though the editorial team
didn't green-light my story,
I couldn't let it go.
And so my editor, my supervisor,
encouraged me to just keep reporting.
Nikki's story was reported on widely,
but no journalists
had talked to Emma Mannion.
As a reporter, you really do
have to keep an open mind.
Just like I'm keeping an open mind
that she could be lying,
I'm also keeping an open mind
that she's telling the truth.
My name's Emma.
I'm 23 years old,
and I'm a dance teacher.
I am born and raised in New Hampshire.
The high school that I went to
had 60 kids in my graduating class.
And then I go to a school
in a completely different area.
I don't know anyone,
and there's 10,000in my freshman class.
It was a hard transition.
That Saturday,
my friend and I
were just gonna go out and have fun.
We headed over to the frat row area,
and a group of guys came up to us.
Very friendly.
Seemed like normal, friendly college guys
trying to talk to girls.
Like, didn't think anything of it.
- What do you want to dance?
- You don't know any of that.
I can learn.
Hey, did I not make
the conversation fun, though?
I feel like that was me now
but like
way, way more naive.
So on November 14th, 2016,
around 5:05 in the evening,
Emma called crying hysterically.
She was hyperventilating,
saying that she was sexually assaulted
in a car in a parking lot
on the strip
outside a place called Mo's Mexican.
There were two guys.
They put their arms around her
and brought her to their car,
pushed her into the car,
banged her head against the car.
And she wouldn't give any more details
at that time.
All I remember telling her
is that
I went out,
and something happened,
and I didn't want it to happen.
And she recommended
that I go to the hospital.
Halfway through the vaginal exam,
the nurse came in saying
that Tuscaloosa PD had arrived.
I have just a hospital gown on,
and the two detectives came in.
There was no conversation of,
"Do you want to report?
Do you want to investigate?"
"Do you want
to press charges against anyone?"
It was just,
"We're here to talk about your rape."
"Tell us what happened."
Three days after the hospital,
they called.
They said, "Come on in."
"We'll chat a little bit more."
When I went to the police station,
I felt like I needed
to keep my body completely covered.
I'm wearing jeans and a puffy vest.
And I am freezing.
-Hey, Emma, how are you feeling?
-I'm okay.
Uh, I told you, was it yesterday
or the day before yesterday, on the phone
we just basically, we like
to come back a couple days later,
sometimes you remember
more detailed stuff,
so we can get just a
a better formal interview with you
and get just as detailed
as we possibly can, okay?
You said
two guys pushed you in the vehicle.
And the other guys,
once Steven got in the vehicle,
all the other guys
stood around the vehicle.
And I just kind of
because it's something that
It's inconsistencies.
We We have to hash it out.
I was always kind of
raised to respect and trust authority.
I understood him wanting me
to walk through my story again.
I understood
him asking clarifying questions.
We've been investigating this
all week.
We have pulled, oh, if you
You have any idea
how many video cameras are around there?
All of that has been pulled.
Okay?
I'm going to tell you,
from the from the investigation,
you're not being honest with me, okay?
- With what I just told you?
- Yes.
I do not believe you.
I do not believe you at all.
And I think you're one of those people
that's taking away frommy true victims.
I didn't understand any
of the accusations.
I'm like, I haven't slept in four days.
My My brain isn't functioning.
I'm not lying.
Did you have sexual intercourse
with Steven?
Yes.
Was it wanted? Was it consensual? No.
Okay, did you did you
fight him off, kick him, tell him no?
Yes.
Watching the video stuff
that we have,
uh, and it shows you and,
I guess, Steven making out,
everything, and
and I know you got in the vehicle.
Now imagine you're the person that's out
there working overtime all week long.
Running around gathering information,
talking to people, getting video.
I'm mad because
Hey, we're
something's gonna be done about this.
I'm so sorry.
Well, if you're sorry,
then that makes me feel better.
I wanted to leave.
I did not want to be
in front of this man anymore.
Because all I heard was that
it was my fault, and I fucked up.
It is a crime
to file that false report.
It is a crime to
to lie to us.
And
I have to arrest you for it.
I just got to get behind your back.
If you would put your hands
like you're praying.
- Mmm.
- Yep, flat palms to make it
So just fixing these up for you.
I got to jail.
I was fingerprinted, had pictures taken.
One of the older women who was there,
she's like, "Why are you here?"
And, like, the only thing I said
was that I was raped,
and they told me I lied about it.
And she was just like,
"You got fucked over."
And then it hits me, and I'm like,
jeez, I I literally got fucked over.
And while I was in jail,
an article was posted online
about my arrest.
My face.
My full name.
That's what I walked out to.
Watching the video stuff
that we have
shows you and, I guess, Steven making out.
Are you get in the vehicle,
and you're initially making out or
or what?
I don't remember.
I keep going back
to Investigator Akridge saying
he has surveillance footage
of Emma making out
with the man she's accusing.
Everything changes in that moment.
Emma's attorney shared with me
all the materials he got from the police.
But the thing that's always been missing
is that surveillance footage. You know?
- Yeah.
- He has a Dropbox folder. It's not there.
And also, even if you had it,
it has nothing to do
with what happened in that car.
And for as many strengths
as Emma has with her case,
I mean, the biggest weakness
was that she pled guilty.
Right.
And it was, like,
a week before my court date
that I read about Megan.
I cr cried so much.
And so I told my lawyer,
I want to know what plea deal I can get.
So many people in Tuscaloosa
had heard about Megan Rondini.
The man she had accused
of rape, TJ Bunn Jr.,
came from one
of the town's most prominent families.
I scoured everything I could find.
Text messages, documents, police videos,
and audio recordings.
It's July the second, 2015, 5:37 a.m.
It's Investigator Jones,
Investigator Hastings at DCH E.R.
-And I'm speaking with What's your name?
-Megan Rondini.
Are you working?
Full-time student here?
No, I was taking summer classes,
and I was about to go home on Sunday.
Tell me what happened last night,
who all you were with.
Me and my friends
went to trivia at Innisfree.
Um it was like me
and a group of ten of my other friends.
I know of his I'm
I'll gonna call him Sweet T because
that's like his nickname or whatever.
I mean, I see him there all the time,
but like,
it's not like we talk to each other.
Like, I just know who he is.
I'm not even sure he,
like, knew who I was.
I was leaving.
Somewhere along the line, he picked me up.
And it was me and another guy named Jason,
in the back of his car.
Sweet T took us to his house.
We were in a room
with, like,
all the animals he had shot or whatever.
Like, I don't know. He goes hunting a lot.
And he told Jason to go to bed,
and he told me
to go upstairs to his room.
Did you ever, uh, resist him?
- Uh Swing at him--
- I was just trying
I mean, I was I I
I know he's, like,
an influential person in Tuscaloosa,
and I was trying to be really nice to him
and just be like,
my friends are waiting on me
and, uh
I just really need to leave.
Oh.
I'm gonna go ahead
and end the interview right now.
According to the police report,
when officers first came to his door,
TJ Bunn denied
having anyone over the night before.
But after a short call with his attorney,
he changed his story.
Can you just tell me
kind of what happened last night?
Sure. I, uh, brought somebody
back to my residence with me.
We had consensual sex.
And
after I went to sleep,
apparently she decided to take my money
and take my car key andleave.
And
uh Josh Hastings woke me up,
ringing my door this morning at 6:45.
Okay. Okay.
- Do you know her name?
- I do not.
All right, man. I appreciate it,
thank you.
She called me the morning after.
Um, and then,
I started driving to Alabama.
The police keep calling
her, asking her to come in.
I don't want her
to go in until I get there.
Megan, Im going to let you sit
there and you sit there next to her.
Let me get a notebook,
and I'll be right back.
Ooh! It's chilly in here.
She's like,
"Mom, they're pressuring me to come in."
"I can do it. It's fine."
I'm like, "No, you need someone with you."
So I requested that an advocate
accompany her to the police station.
Another thingthat worries me,
I don't know if my dad told you,
is, like, this guy
is kind of, like, an influential--
I'm aware. Yeah.
Do you remember
getting in the car?
No.
Do you remember any stops at all?
No.
So
If I say that
y'all stopped by your apartment,
before you went to TJ's,
or Sweet T's,
before y'all went there
Okay, 'cause they're getting
You know, y'all's
your complex has got video there.
Okay, do you remember?
- I do not remember going there.
- Okay.
Do you remember fixin' him a drink?
No. I don't I don't remember being there
at all. Like I don't remember being there.
Okay.
Is any of this bringing back anything?
I feel like I want to, like, throw up.
Okay.
What we wanna do is just look
in your apartment. Okay?
Do you have a problem with us doing that?
Fine. Okay.
- I can't go to your apartment.
- That's fine.
I mean, do you want me to hang
around here till you come back or--
- No, I think I think I'm I'll be okay.
- Are you sure?
The advocate didn't stay with her
for the whole questioning,
and that's thepoint in the interview
where they turn the tables.
While you were in
back in the bedroom,
did you remember
going through any other things in there?
I went through all the keys, and then
I tried to see if he had any cash
that I could pay for a cab with.
Okay.
Did he have any cash?
He had, like, three dollars.
Okay.
So, you got Did you get the cash?
- Yes.
- Okay.
I'm not doubting
-what you're telling me--
-I just feel like
he has some advantage over me
and they're saying like I
I don't really understand why.
Hi, Ms. Gray, um,
this is Rachel de Leon.
I was just in speaking with someone there
regarding meeting with Sheriff Abernathy.
Love to know if he might be available
on Thursday after 1:00 p.m.
Okay, talk to you soon.
The chain of command
for this unit in Tuscaloosa
ends with Sheriff Abernathy.
He's responsible for his police officers.
The ones who investigated
Megan's and Emma's cases.
Hi, uh, this is Rachel de Leon.
I'm a reporter calling from Reveal.
I was, uh, following up
because you thought
perhaps Sheriff Abernathy may have
some time today for a phone call.
He's not going to have
any time this week to meet with you.
Oh, that's really unfortunate.
What happened?
He
His calendar just got filled up.
He doesn't have
any, you know, available time.
Once Sheriff Abernathy's office
decides a crime's been committed,
the case moves
to the district attorney's office.
It's the DA's office
who will decide whether to press charges.
- Hello.
- Hi, is this attorney, uh, Paula Whitley?
I am not willing
to really get into anything specific
about any particular cases.
-Bye.
-Take care. Bye.
For several months,
I tried to reach Sheriff Abernathy,
but he and others
in his department refused to talk to me.
for Sheriff Ron Abernathy.
Please leave a message,
and I will return your call
The only police officer
I could find who had a lot of knowledge
about Megan Rondini and was willing
to talk to me was Carl Hershman.
-Okay, you got me now?
-Got you now.
I was a cop for, uh, 32 years.
The majority of that time
I spent in Sex Crimes Unit.
I've been here lately testifying a lot.
-Nice to meet you. I'm Rae.
-Nice to meet you. I'm Carl.
He was an expert
in a lawsuit involving Megan's case.
In Megan's case,
within 13 hours of her reporting,
she's treated as a suspect.
So, what are the things that they're
that they say, you know,
make them question her story?
Well, there were several. So, the
the inconsistency in her statement
that she completely left out
that they went back to her apartment.
Do you remember
I do not remember going there.
Okay.
Inconsistent statements
are not red flags.
There's a reason for them.
Megan Rondini,
20 years old, severely intoxicated.
She became blacked out.
And now she's scared
because she doesn't know
what happened at the apartment.
This is something new to her.
Now she's questioning herself
because that was just so foreign to her.
You can clearly see her body language.
As a victim, you think to yourself,
this will be used against me.
This is evidence.
They They think I'm lying.
Now, she's the suspect.
Those investigators were thinking
that this was consensual.
Even though at the hospital,
she makes the statement,
"He held me down."
He didn't hit me,
he didn't, like, shove me.
But he held me, like, down.
Now TJ Bunn, he's not once treated
like a sexual assault, uh, suspect.
As they walk through with a video camera,
you hear the lead detective say
had consensual sex, so
I think he was scared when we showed up,
still probablyintoxicated
and making some bad decisions.
They They don't
interview him on a sexual assault
that just occurred hours before that.
They let him go on a fishing trip
with his attorney.
- Sorry, guys.
- No, that's all right.
I'll get y'all outta here.
- Here.
- There we go.
We, uh We went fishing
What day did we go fishing? Thursday?
Fishing Friday well, Friday morning.
- Anything biting?
- Yep.
It's snapper season in state waters
right now,
- so we went out.
- Made a killing, huh?
Yeah, we we caught about 30 minutes in.
Really? Thirty minutes?
It took us 45 minutes to get there
and 30 minutes to catch
The investigator
gave his statement to him.
So y'all are having consensual sex.
She never said no, never said stop.
She was completely into it.
-Right?
-That's correct.
If anything, to be honest,
she was extremely flirtatious
- from the time we picked her up.
- Okay.
So, it was a willing--
It was a willing participant
on both ends.
Y'all did y'all's job,
and I appreciate it.
Well, the way I look at it, man,
if it was me on the other side of it,
I'd want to do the same thing for me.
- You know?
- I do. I appreciate all y'all.
Y'all have done a very thorough job,
and I appreciate it.
I I appreciate it.
I appreciate you being cooperative.
I know it's not something easy.
And you too, man.
You know? He's always
always been easy to deal with,
I'm telling you, always.
I wish they were all that that, uh,
easy to get a hold of when you need to.
- Y'all give me a sec. I'll be right back.
- Okay.
If they can communicate that to her.
That I won't pursue
I won't pursue her if she don't pursue me.
But I will play hardball if she does.
- You said you never resisted him.
- I did resist him.
I said that I wanted to leave.
When he tried to kiss me, I turned away.
- Like, I didn't--
- But you didn't.
Never kicked him or hit him,
tried tried to resist him.
So Megan, um
Later on, Megan learns
that they did pursue charges against her
for theft, not for false reporting.
And so she moves back home
and tries to move on with her life
and goto school, but, uh,
sadly Megan ends up taking her own life.
Um
Sorry.
Um
I was adamant that she find a therapist.
And so she was gonna go.
She filled out all the forms,
and they were there on her dresser, um
-When they found her body.
-filled out when they found her body.
When she died, um,
she had a note next to her bed
that said the reason she
was seeking mental health treatment
was because she was raped, bullied
by police, and changed universities.
Her parents sued the school
and the alleged assailant.
Um, they settled with the school
and the alleged assailant.
They could not sue
the sheriff's department.
A lawsuit filed
against two investigators and myself
regarding the Megan Rondini suicide
has been dismissed.
The Alabama Attorney General's office
reviewed the case
and approved our investigators' actions
and the investigative process.
Hi, Sheriff Abernathy.
My name is Rachel de Leon. I'm a reporter.
- Hold on a second.
- Okay.
-Hi.
-I really don't have anything to say.
I I don't need to get
into the specifics. We can talk generally
about the department and how it
handles sexual assault investigations.
Okay, I'll see what I can do.
I appreciate that, and sorry for,
you know, bombarding you on a weekend,
but I'm in town tomorrow, and I'd be happy
to meet with you if you have some time.
- Okay. I appreciate it.
- In the morning. Thank you.
I'm super nervous,
in general, knocking on someone's door.
When I do things like that,
I just remember that I'm doing it
on behalf of someone else
who who can't do it themselves.
It's really important for me
that I see the evidence for myself
to make sure I have everything right
and get to the truth
without hearing it secondhand.
Megan's and Emma's cases were both handled
by the same police unit.
But are they indicative
of a police culture unique to Tuscaloosa,
or are they part of a bigger pattern?
Feels like there's a lot
of larger cultural issues at play here.
Like, from believing women,
you know, to police biases.
To me, the big question is,
do we know how representative this is?
You know, without necessarily going
to get cases,
maybe you could collect the media reports
of false reporting just to show
that it is
at least maybe a national issue.
Nope, don't even go near.
I wanted to find out how many people
were prosecuted for false reporting,
but there is essentially no research
that has been done about this.
I have a Google alert set up to catch
certain articles that would come in,
and new alerts would show up every month.
A woman has pled guilty
to three felonies and two misdemeanors
charges against
a well-known yogateacher.
sexually assaulted
by three police officers while she
I managed to gather more
than 160 cases
that were reported on in the media,
mostly from the last ten years
from all over the country.
Rae just kept finding
more and more cases,
and at a certain point,
we were like, "Shit!"
Like, we got this was gonna be
a quick story, and this is this is huge.
And my role was to kick the tires on it.
Okay, what what do we really have?
What evidence can you find?
We have been collecting as much audio
or video of interviews as possible,
'cause I just think
that's a very important thing to look at.
I'm gonna tell you
right now that basically, I got you here
under, basically, a ruse.
- Okay.
- Okay. Uh
-There is no letter.
-Okay.
And what we've done is we've allowed
the DA's office to review this case.
And they've issued a warrant
for your arrest.
Okay.
For falsely reporting a police report,
or a rape.
It appears that you were using the threat
of rape toget what you want.
No, sir.
I just wanna tell you this,
and there's no getting around it, um,
the evidence that we have in this case
is not jiving with your side of the story.
Our investigation
is showing, there is
some things that webelieve are untrue
coming from your side of the story.
We're never gonna know
exactly what happened
in any of these assault cases,
but we can look
at the police investigation.
Who did the police talk to?
What methods did they follow?
Was it thorough? Was it fair?
And did they rely on the reporting victim
retracting their story or recanting?
You'll be charged
with filing a false report.
You're gonna go
to the Douglas County Jail
-From here?
-You'll be booked in.
The charges will be
Falsely reporting
an incident.
I noticed when I got
into the Sex Crimes Unit
that every year,
more people reported. Right?
But you're getting less detectives
to investigate.
Sex crimes are always gonna take longer
to work than other crimes.
And if you're already holding
30 cases to 40 cases,
you could end up shortcutting
your investigative process.
If I can get her to, you know, decline
prosecution or stop the investigation,
my numbers come down.
You don't think I can
an 18-year-old can come up,
and I can talk her out of coming forward.
Oh, I can.
Uh, oh yeah, Cathy.
Yeah, yeah, I read your case.
Yeah, sorry this happened to you.
Hey, look, um,
I'm gonna tell you right now,
because you were making out
with this guy or his friend before,
uh, that's not gonna look good.
So, and the DA, they're gonna frown
upon that you were drinking underage.
Okay, thanks.
Click. Bang.
Sign it off. Hand it in.
Now you're 20?
- Yes.
- And you got a fake ID?
And And you said that you
had five cups of beer?
Yeah.
So they offered you shots
of the Skyy vodka?
- Yes.
- Did y'all drink any of it?
This is what I think.
Mm-hmm.
You and Steven started
having consensual sex.
You freak out a little bit
Everything was good?
Consensual?
Both you guys are grown adults.
You don't wanna ruin this guy's life,
do you?
-You don't wanna see him go to prison.
-Deep down he's a good dude.
I mean, you guys just made a mistake.
You go your way. He'll go his way.
We're gonna go our way.
In most of the cases I looked at,
the alleged assailant was known somehow
to the reporting victim,
or there was a brief encounter
before the incident.
That opens up the possibility
the police could say there was consent.
a pretty big deal, okay?
But then I found a case
about a total stranger.
King University student
claimed that a law enforcement officer
or person impersonating an officer
assaulted her during a traffic stop.
The sheriff's office says Dyanie Bermeo
admitted that she lied
and charged her with giving false report
to law enforcement.
I got wind of Dyanie's case
as it was unfolding,
and I met Melissa who is fighting Dyanie's
false reporting charge at no cost.
Like, I saw the story.
- Yeah.
- It didn't sit well with me.
And I just wanted to let her know,
you know, if she wants to talk about it,
I'm here. I'm also an attorney
Her case caught my attention
because it's so different
from the others I've been investigating.
Dyanie says she was assaulted
by a total stranger.
And so, if police aren't disputing consent
in the case,
what is the basis for their doubt?
My name is
Dyanie Bermeo.
I go to school
at King University,
and I'm a double major
in psychology and criminal justice.
I remember I was in eighth grade.
I would hear
the Law & Order theme song coming on,
and I was like, "Dad, why are you
watching this? Like, just change it."
And he was just like, "Sit down
and actually watch an episode with me."
And I got hooked.
I'm Detective Benson.
Who are you?
I'm Dori.
My favorite detective
probably would be Olivia Benson.
You know where she is!
I used to just love
watching her catch the bad guy
and just how she pieced
all the clues together and everything.
The hints, the evidence.
And it was awesome.
We've got names, addresses,
dates of birth, Social Security numbers.
I knew I wanted to be a cop.
But this past year,
that hope of trying to be a
like, trying to make a difference
just wasn't there anymore.
I was 21 at the time.
I was driving back to campus,
and I was listening to music.
And then for a flash second,
I was looking up at my rearview mirror,
and I saw blue lights,
and I was just like, "Are you kidding me?"
So, I pulled over,
and the officer came to my window,
and he said,
"Did you know how fast you were going?"
And I was like, "No, sir.
It couldn't have been more than 40."
He was, like, "Okay, well,
can you step out of the vehicle?"
I asked him why,
and he was just, like,
"Well if you're gonna be
this much trouble,
I can call for backup
and have five to six officers out here."
And as soon as I got out of the vehicle,
he didn't even let me look
at him or anything. He turned me around.
He started searching me like
Like, he went like this.
He didn't go under my shirt or anything,
and then he went in between my legs.
I was just standing there.
I didn't want to look.
I had my eyes closed and everything.
He got back in his car, and he drove off.
The first person I called was my dad.
And I remember crying to him,
and I told him to not be mad.
I had told him that I was going
to talk to the police
and to report it, and he was like,
"Okay, okay, that's fine. Yeah."
What could you tell
about his face, if anything?
Nothing. I mean, he didn't even
As soon as I got out of the vehicle,
he told me to turn around
and put my hands on my car.
And while he was touching me,
I All I could say was,
"P Please think what you're doing."
"What you're about to do.
Just, please, think about it."
And he told me to shut up.
I didn't even get to see him.
About howtall,
compared to you, do you feel like he was?
Taller. Um, at least six-four.
What car were you in?
A 2020 black Kia Soul.
Kia Soul.
We're taking this serious,
and certainly we don't want anyone
out there impersonating a police officer
and stopping females, and
-Uh
-That's right.
Touching their body inappropriately
or whatever.
You don't want them doing that.
I started digging into these cases
where rape victims
have been prosecuted for
false reporting back in about 2013,
and there's been a number of cases
where I've served as an expert witness
when somebody's been prosecuted
for a suspected false reporting.
If I pull it up on
Google Maps, you think you could show me
- about where you were stopped at?
- Yes.
She's I don't expect
she's necessarily gonnaremember
where she was assaulted.
Where exactly on the road.
-She does though.
-Does she?
She gives them so much information
because she
-Shes a very detail-oriented person.
-Okay.
All right, thank you very much.
Thank you.
Oh, and here they start talking
about their suspect.
This is very interesting.
Guy's gonna be
about 50, 45 to 50 years old.
You know exactly who I'm thinking,
don't you?
- Six-foot-four.
- Dewayne Mullins.
We suspected him years ago for stuff
like that,
- wanting to be a police officer.
- Dewayne Mullins
Yes!
He's got family--
He's got a Crown Vic!
He's got family down this way.
You know, they have a lead here.
This is a possible suspect.
You have to alibi that guy.
Where were you on this date and time?
And he's six-five.
He's been convicted
for impersonating a police officer before.
I'm not saying it's Dewayne Mullins.
I'm just saying that that's a lead
you got to follow up on and really hard.
Hi, this message is
for Dewayne Mullins.
Um, I don't know
if I have the right number--
rerecord
your message, press one.
To mark your message urgent, press two.
Hi, Dewayne,
my name is Rachel de Leon.
There's something that's come up
in a story I'm working on,
and I think you're the person
I want to speak with about.
They had someone in mind.
She remembers the person
being six-four or six-five.
Said he was driving a Crown Victoria.
-I haven't had a Crown Vic in years.
-Okay. All right.
We never even heard of the case.
- They never reached out to let you know?
- No.
If you do figure out, like,
where you were, I'd really appreciate it.
-And I heard--
-I wasn't back around there.
From nine to nine to ten,
I would've been at work.
-Titan Wheel.
-Yeah. They got cameras.
-In Saltville. They got cameras.
-Say it again.
They had a guy in mind,
a possible suspect in mind.
What they decide to do is
go out and try to get video
of where she had driven into and such.
Right. Maybe we'll get his car on there,
and then we can confront him with it.
That's great.
First video was from a gas station
that nobody ever mentions they drove past.
The second one was from a Jeep dealership.
They call, and they talked to Adam.
No No last name.
Adam calls him back and says,
"Oh I saw a 2020 Kia
drive past our dealership,
no car behind it."
And then the third video
was from this private residence
that sets back off about 150 yards.
A football field and a half.
But at nighttime, you can see the road
if there's little lights blinking,
I guess.
I did not, like, realize
that he was "behind me" behind me
until I saw the lights.
But the lights were so far back.
- That's when I saw this.
- Okay?
And I pulled over
right here.
- You okay?
- Mm-hmm.
I just remember putting the car inparked.
And I put the e-brake on,
and I just waited
until he came to the car.
And that's whenever
he had the flashlight on.
And I couldn't see his face.
Oh.
You can't see anything from here.
Like,
I don't even know if you could see
the house from over here.
- Like, not at all.
- No.
-You wanna take a walk over there?
-Let's do it.
I need to see where
the police got the surveillance footage
used as evidence in Dyanies case.
- Yeah, that one. Yep.
- Okay.
Totally empty.
The camera should have been right here,
because on the video,
there were two vehicles parked here.
So this is the extent
of what you see though.
We just, um, had a couple
of quick questions, if you don't mind. Um
So my client was driving
down this road at night,
she was sexually assaulted--
- Here?
- Yes.
So I guess a cop never came
and asked you questions about this.
- Didn't know a thing about it.
- Thank you so much.
If I was a detective,
I'd be knocking on all of these doors.
When the detectives came to my dorm,
I didn't know that they were recording me,
because I didn't know it was
an interrogation or something.
Scott told youearlier
we're trying to get video
from that one house.
We've looked at that video,
and we see you go by.
- Yeah.
- But no one else.
Okay.
After they said, like,
"Oh, we saw this video recording."
"We could specifically see your car
just passing byand nothing else,"
is whenever I felt like
they they just turned,
and they didn't believe me anymore.
I didn't even think about asking, like,
"Hey, can I see the video or anything?"
I just wanted it to be over with.
I just didn't want to talk
about it anymore.
This is the video.
-Okay.
-So there goes one car.
All they need is one car going by
and claim it is a Kia Soul.
Mm-hmm.
-They made their minds up.
-Right, yeah.
They knew that they were
going down there to accuse her.
The last thing I want
to do is stand here and call you a liar.
Yeah.
Okay, but what I see
you doing is digging your hole deeper.
So we just need you to keep it between us.
- But we need you to tell us the truth.
- Okay.
Okay?
No stop happened, did it?
Mm-mm.
Why did you make that up?
I don't know.
The moment he says,
"Well, why did you do this?"
And she says, "I don't know."
Instead of saying,
"I was doing poorly in school,"
which she wasn't,
"I was fighting with my boyfriend,"
which she wasn't,
"I was having personal problems
at home," which she wasn't.
She doesn't need the attention of this,
but they needed that admission from her,
so they tricked her.
I got a call
from Detective Adkins,
and he asked me if it was okay
if I could come to the station
and sign some paperwork
to close off the case.
He sat me down, and he was, like,
"There's no other way to tell you this,
but we have to charge you
with filing a false police report."
"You wasted
so many people's time and everything."
"So that's why we have to charge you
and that this is the sheriff's decision
to do this and everything."
We all talked, and we we decided
we have to press charges.
They took me back to take my mugshot.
They did my fingerprints,
and then Detective Adkins was like,
"If you plead guilty, you know,
we'll try and give a good word
to the prosecutor
that, you know, to go easy on you."
I drove back to campus,
and I was just crying
because
not only have I not told anybody
that the police didn't believe me,
but now I have to tell everybody
that I'm being charged
with filing a false police report.
And
Im so sorry.
What's making you so upset?
Just remembering how scared I was and how
Just how I handled everything.
That night, I didn't sleep good either.
And when I woke up,
my roommate was like,
"Dyanie, what is this?"
And it was the article that the police
had posted on their Facebook page.
I was getting Facebook messages
from random people.
Basically saying
what you could only imagine,
that I was going to rot in jail.
"People like you are the reason
why cops get bad rep."
My face was plastered everywhere,
and I didn't want to stay
on campus anymore.
There certainly seems
to be a mediaobsession
with this notion that, uh yeah,
women are somehow, uh, falsely accusing
all kinds of men of sexual assault.
There's a huge media fascination.
Desi assaulted me that night.
The Gone Girl syndrome, right?
She intentionally lied to you
about theassault.
I was being held prisoner.
A A lot of officers are told,
usually from somebody in their own office,
"Oh, yeah. You know, half of them lie."
Or, "Yeah, like, you know,
two-thirds of them lie."
False reports of sexual assault
are actually pretty rare.
The most reliable studies say 2% to 10%.
The much, much bigger concern
people should have, including men,
is that they could be sexually assaulted.
At least one out of every three women
and at least one out of every six men
will be a victim of sexual assault
in their lifetime.
Then their perpetrator
could be left to re-offend.
I've been collecting news stories
on false reporting cases
from mostly the past ten years.
But what is the media not including?
We needed to go beyond the headlines
and access the details
in the police records.
To get that kind
of information takes time, lawyers,
and lots of Freedom of Information
requests, or FOIAs.
It wasn't possible to FOIA every single
police department in the United States.
So, it was just choosing
a few counties to look at
to try to get full case files
so we could really do a deep dive.
What did
the police investigation look like?
Why did they make that flip?
Once we started requesting
and even suing for police records,
I was drowning in documents.
This took three years,
but we were able to uncover records
for 52 cases.
I needed a team of journalists to help me
make sense of what we were finding.
Four to five hundred pages
in here.
- And that was one case.
- Like a a needle in a haystack.
There were some cases
where they were charged
with false reporting within a day.
You're supposed to finish
the sexual assault investigation first
to show that there was no assault
or rape that occurred.
And then,
once you've done that, you explore
whether it was a false report.
-But it only happened in one of our cases.
-Yeah.
It's incredibly important as journalists
to never take what police write as the
as fact and truth.
It's only in the details
that you start seeing
how a reporting victim becomes a suspect.
It was finally enough
to start looking for patterns.
In more than half the cases we found,
the reporting victim recanted.
So if the investigator's writing that they
recanted, what happened before that?
I wonder how many of these investigators
used deceitbefore the person
allegedly confessed or recanted?
Mmm.
I want you
to really tell me the truth
because I have this on video.
The evidence
that we have
in this case is not jiving
with your side of the story.
I've got the video. We've got video too.
Police officers
in this country are allowed to lie to you,
and they don't have to indicatein
the police report that they lied to you.
They don't have to say that.
An officer will sometimes say,
"We have video footage
showing the encounter,
so I'm going to ask you some questions."
"Now, be honest with me,
because remember, I have video."
I believe evidence,
so if you tell me you have
video evidence that that didn't happen,
then, like, I guess I have to believe you.
You're not getting the truth out
when you do these kinds of things.
You are confusing a person
who's already traumatized
and already has memory difficulties.
I know
he's taken two polygraphs.
And I know
He didn't take two polygraphs.
He's lying to her.
-Oh wow.
-Yeah.
You don't think
Getting the victim
to retract their allegations is
such an important strategy
for some of these police officers
because they haven't actually investigated
the sexual assault thoroughly.
They don't actually have any evidence
no crime was committed
or attempted against the victim,
and so their best bet
is to pressure this person
to retract their allegations
and then use that retraction
to charge them.
I was really curious to talk
to you about Emma's case.
You know, she reported this,
and then five days later,
you know, it flips on her entirely.
They've got her in handcuffs.
So I'm trying to understand
how that happens for someone who,
you know, is adamant
that this did, you know, happen to her,
that she was assaulted.
So about an hour and a half
into Emma's interview,
Investigator Akridge walks out of the room
and locks the door behind him.
And then they put on
a white noise machine.
So the white noise is
they're talking outside the door,
and they just don't want her to hear.
So they leave it on
for ten minutes.
Watching the video stuff
that we have,
um, and it shows you
and, I guess, Steven making out
He talks about that there is this video,
and they've watched this video,
and we we don't know if it exists.
Emma hasn't seen it at this point.
His theory is what? It's consensual.
You know, but she still hasn't submitted
yet to his theory.
So if he is making up a video here,
uh, this would be
the perfect time to do it.
That video was
to get a reaction out of her,
and so when she recants or submits,
that's their entire case.
At this point, I had not gotten
the surveillance footage,
which Ireally, really wanted,
and they would not give it to me.
It was just a full denial.
However, I knew that that some of it
should be public record,
and so we were gonna fight for that.
Hi, Attorney Bailey.
We took the extra step
to hire an Alabama-based attorney
to sue for the records,
and we we won.
We got some of the records.
Okay, lets see.
This is hours of footage
from four different security cameras.
We're looking for Emma making out
or getting into a Jeep.
That's a couple.
Hmm.
What is that? A spider?
This is almost 1:00 a.m.
Yeah, I cant really tell.
Yeah,
they just start making out.
I want you to tell me
what you see,
and if anything's upsetting,
we'll stop. Um
So, this is a perspective
from, I guess, an alleyway nearby.
The sheriff's department
confirmed it's near Gallettes Bar,
if that sounds familiar at all?
Anyway, that's the first couple we saw,
so we noted it.
-Do they look familiar to you at all?
-No.
Okay,
this is a couple that's making out.
That's not m me.
- Like, that's just not
- Mm-hmm.
- That's not me.
- Mm-hmm.
Does that at all look like
who could have attacked you?
-No, not at all.
-Okay.
Like, that's the longest and closest I saw
any couple doing anything like that
in the footage I was provided.
- Gotcha.
- On this video
they wouldn't give you
that you had to go to court to get.
Yeah.
Wow.
If it was truly an unbiased investigation
to get to the truth,
asking you whether or not
that was you on the video
should have been part of it.
Yeah. They don't get into a car.
They very clearly walked around
and away after they were done kissing.
Do you all want to look at, um,
the cell phone footage from that night?
-Yeah. I feel that would be smart.
-Absolutely.
- Where'd you get that?
- It's from my friend's phone.
-It's a video from that night.
-Oh, that's right.
I forgot about that.
The guy who's in the video with me is
the one who stood outside of the vehicle.
Okay.
She's very clearly got
some type of skirt or dress on.
Her hair is fully down.
My hair was in braids that night.
So if that's the video he's going off of,
this is a very direct lie to my face.
- Makes me very angry.
- Mm-hmm.
I think it could become harmful
to the subject
if a journalist starts
to play an advocate role.
My parents
My job is
to investigate it fully.
I cannot be their friend, and I don't ever
want there to be confusion about that.
So I need to maintain, like,
a professional boundary there.
Ooh. Behind one of these frats is
where that video
that you have of us is taken.
Emma told me
the detectives never accompanied her
to retrace her steps
the night of the alleged assault.
- What do you want to dance?
- You don't know any of that.
Wait. Yeah, its right here.
That's it. Is that it?
- Yes, that's the white--
- Yeah.
- Yep, that's absolutely it.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
From, like, right here.
Going back that way
Mm-hmm.
is how we went up
toward the strip area.
Okay.
I need to understand where Emma
remembers the alleged rape occurring
and whether that location was captured
in any of the footage that I have.
This is it.
So I don't know
where the angle is on the on your video.
-I feel like that's this alley?
-Right.
Yeah, it's got the white painted brick.
That's the camera.
So let's see if we can find
where the couple is kissing.
There is a camera right there, right?
The footage I received
from the Tuscaloosa Sheriff's Office
is from four surveillance cameras
around Gallettes Bar.
The couple making out was here.
Emma says she didn't walk by
the bar at all.
She told the detectives she walked
with the alleged assailants
from a completely different direction
and on to the gravel lot.
The car was parked here.
Absolutely no cameras.
Fuck.
Watching the video stuff
that we have,
um, and it shows you, and, I guess,
Steven, making out and everything.
And I I know you got in the vehicle.
How can you tell me that I'm lying to you
when there are no cameras
pointing in that area?
And the only footage that they gave you
is on the other side of the building.
I feel so unbelievably lied to.
Fuck!
Um, I was wondering
if Mr. Jared Akridge is available.
I was hoping to talk to you
about an investigation
that happened several years ago--
I can't speak to you
about any of our cases.
All right.
Well, can we sit down, I'll talk?
And if I can show you,
I would be very, very grateful.
I'm just not willing
to talk about anything at all.
Okay.
High five. Good boy.
- Do you have a second?
- Yeah.
How are you doing? How are you holding up?
Um, I'm doing okay.
I mean, I can't even imagine, like the
just the the small amount
that you shared from the case files
is enough to really stick with you.
Yeah, it's just hard to know,
I guess, if this is really gonna make
a difference, um doing this because
I guess, I'm not sure that the police
will ever own up to anything
because I know that matters
in the public's opinion.
- Right.
- Like what will the police own up to.
Right.
For Alabama,
Sheriff Abernathywon't talk to me.
Investigator Akridge won't talk to me.
It's very frustrating.
In Virginia,
no one will give me an interview.
I don't know what else to do.
I really just hit like a big wall.
We have no police right now
talking to me.
Um What about Cotto?
Cotto, maybe.
Cotto, maybe. Perhaps.
Okay.
My name is Detective Cotto
of the Bridgeport Police Department.
As I read through these cases,
the one detective who I keep thinking
about is Detective Cotto.
He's the one
who investigated Nikki Yovino'scase
and is the reason why
I got started on this.
Nikki Yovino originally
claimed two Sacred Heart football players
had pulled her into a bathroom
and then took turns raping her.
In both Emma's
and Dyanies cases,
the police won't confirm whether
the videos were used as a ruse,
but Detective Cotto
is pretty open
that he does use ruses to get confessions.
Uh, as part of your job as a detective,
um, you lie to people
that you are interrogating, right?
Uh, yes. It's called a ruse.
What you try to do is get to see
if, uh, you know, you suggest things
to see what their responses are
and where they're gonna lead to.
Yesterday was her
sentencing hearing, and she was sentenced
to one year behind bars,
and she got a lashing from the judge.
After Nikki's case,
five people submitted citizen complaints
about Detective Cotto's treatment
of sexual assault victims.
None resulted in a ruling against him.
Cotto was still the lead detective
in the Bridgeport unit
that investigates sexual assault.
After three years of trying
to talk to Detective Cotto,
he finally said yes.
-Hi, Detective Cotto. Im Rae.
-How are you?
-Nice to meet you.
-A pleasure.
Thanks so much for having us here today
and taking the time out of your day.
-I really appreciate it.
-It's okay.
Tell me about what this job is like.
My job is a fact-finding mission.
Okay, so I have to be unbiased.
Criminal investigation is quite difficult
because you have toprove
that a sexual assault
did, in fact, happen.
And a lot of it is the interrogation.
I was privileged to take interview
and interrogation courses.
How are we gonna get a confession?
What's a confession?
There are
numerous training techniques
that police use to elicit confessions.
One of the most famous is
the Reid technique.
Through extended research
and years of experience,
John Reid and Associates has developed
a nine-step interrogation process.
There's been
a lot of controversy around Reid
and false confessions.
When you have a combination of an officer
who has learned tactics that are designed
to elicit confessions from suspects
and that person has skepticism
of, uh, sexual assault victims,
thinking that they're lying,
then they will often turn
to those interrogation tactics
that they've learned in order
to try to elicit an admission
from the victim that they're lying.
In an effort to increase the suspect's
feeling of internal anxiety and guilt
at this stage of the interrogation,
we begin to move closer,
shortening the distance
between the suspect and ourselves,
moving into their personal space.
Listen. I I'm sorry.
I'm not trying to embarrass you.
In her interview,
he touches her knees several times.
- So--
- You're in the bathroom?
Yeah.
He's an adult male,
and she's an 18-year-old who was recently,
according to her,
led into a bathroom by two men
where an unwanted sexual act took place.
So, they didn't pull you
into the bathroom, correct?
No, but they did grab my arm
at first.
Sure? I mean, and and
and who wouldn't grab your arm?
Look, you're a pretty young lady.
You You really are.
You're a pretty young lady.
You're a nice young lady.
Can you walk me through
as much as you can?
- Mm-hmm.
- The, um, technique that you used.
So for an example, I'm I'm gonna
I'm just gonna use you right now.
Okay, you are, um,
engaged in what I'm saying.
How do I know that?
You were sitting back,
and I was mirroring you
in how you were sitting.
Right? So my hands were here.
You were holding it. You were like this.
So you're studying body language
as you're
I am. I'm breaking down
psychological barriers
to the point where
You know, and you can use ruse.
A ruse.
-You know, I give it
-What is that?
A ruse is a tool that allows
that aids law enforcement
to get to the truth.
-Okay.
-It's actually not being truthful to them.
Oh. Like what?
Saying a lie. Saying like like,
"What if I tell you
that the intersection
this intersection at this particular time
um, you know, record was recording."
But you don't have this footage.
- Maybe not.
- Maybe not. Okay.
We use ruse every single day.
Everybody does.
What if I tell you
I was able to obtain
phone video
that shows you at the wall
speaking to them at the party.
Who was the first person
that walked out the bathroom?
'Cause this is also videotaped.
He repeatedly tells Nikki
that she made up the whole thing,
that she went into
the bathroom willingly to have sex.
She actually never says that.
At some point,
she just doesn't disagree with him.
You didn't get raped
in the bathroom. You knew that.
And you know, afterwards you just wanted
to distance yourself from it.
- Right?
- Mm-hmm.
This happened to you,
and now somebody is accusing you
of lying about it
and fabricating the whole thing.
I'll be right back, okay?
In that situation,
they need to get out of that encounter.
Countless women, especially young women,
have been talked into
and cajoled into recanting
because that's how they
can get out of that situation.
I mean,
if you read my investigation,
everything I do is fact-based.
I dont have an opinion in here.
There's not one opinion
anywhere in my investigations.
Did you ever interview the two men?
I did not.
No, they didn't want to be interviewed.
- Oh, but you asked?
- Oh, absolutely I did.
Oh yeah, absolutely I did,
but they just didn't want to.
One gave a written statement
to his school
Okay.
but none gave me, uh,
a statement personally.
Okay. It did come out recently
that one of the men had previously
been accused of a sexual assault
while at Sacred Heart a month
before Nikki reported it to you.
And I I need to know if you knew that
while you were investigating Nikki's case.
- Who are we talk--
- About
- No, it's on there.
- His name on there
Was it from And And that's from where?
- Sacred Heart University?
- Yeah.
Yeah, no. So I
So during it, I was not aware.
Does this change anything,
you think?
No, because I'm going
to explain something to you. So, um
So there was an individual,
um
I'm positive I didnt see it
and then it I
I'm positive it was not in the, um
the, uh you know, wasn't
of any evidence that I obtained.
Okay.
Okay. So let's do this.
Can you Let's stop this,
and then let's look.
Okay.
Why not? Let's look.
Thank you.
Detective Cotto sayshe couldn't find
the man's name in the system.
A thorough investigation
would have included looking
into the suspect's past.
Cotto interrogated Nikki
but never interviewed
either of the two men
who have since insisted
the sex was consensual.
Ultimately, Nikki plead guilty.
The physical check.
Now, let's see it.
In the false reporting
cases I went through,
in almost half of them,
it's not clear if the suspect
was even interviewed or was identified.
Which is, like,
a really big deal.
It's, like, a very key part
of an investigation.
I'm just like, wow,
there's so much more they could have done.
There's just so much more
they could have done.
There have been
several investigators involved,
and we have done
a very, very thorough investigation.
In Emmas case,
both the suspects weren't even identified.
There were other friends
that possibly knew him
or other witnesses that that knew him.
Did they go to that school?
She had a video that one
of the suspects were on.
I mean, they they would have been
It would have been easy to find.
I mean, if you're gonna do anything,
you need to identify them two.
In Emma's police report,
the surveillance video appears to be
this really critical piece of evidence
to justify her arrest.
And if they just completely
misidentified her,
I would think that they'd care.
Folks like Emma's family reach out
to lawyers like myself,
uh, because we have a certain perspective.
Uh, we understand what it's like
to be at the bottom of the boot.
We're essentially claiming that
they withheld, uh, this video from us.
We think it clearly exonerates Emma.
There is now an opportunity
to overturn the case,
meaning that this could just
be completely wiped from her record
as if this false reporting charge
never happened.
And if we win that and they determine
that there was a constitutional violation,
uh, then yeah,
the case will be overturned.
I'm so used
to seeing her documents
as the State of Alabama
versus Emma Catherine Mannion.
Now it's Emma Catherine Mannion
versus the State of Alabama.
All right.
- Thank you, guys.
- Thank you, Emma.
-Uh, we'll be talking to you soon.
-Thank you.
The last few years
have catapulted my healing.
Aw, it's good to see you.
Because Rae's taken my word for my word
and not just done it blindly
but gone and done the legwork
that the police should have done.
They have a tough job, you know.
I would dot your I's and cross your T's.
Okay.
I'd like to run through the questions
and see if it lines up
with what I'm looking from for you.
So my first question would be,
what are some of the reasons
that a sexual assault victim
might recant a legitimate report?
It can be
how she's treated by officers.
Um, if, uh, they used deception on her.
You know, it's not strong,
confident, middle-aged women
that experience being charged
with false reporting.
- It's young women, vulnerable.
- Right.
So she's somebody that is easy
to take advantage of.
-A perfect target.
-Yeah. Mm-hmm.
If If she "false reported," then
the sexual assault didn't happen, right?
So they just completely forget about
the sexual assault portion of it.
I just want to really get her exonerated.
- That's really the biggest thing.
- Okay.
When we got that guilty verdict,
Melissa was like, "It's okay.
We're going to appeal."
I'm hoping that
it's a different outcome this time,
but do I have the same faith
in the criminal justice system
like I did before?
No, I don't.
How are you two feeling?
Nervous.
I just
This place doesn't bring me good memories.
-Were you here for the last hearing, the--
-Yeah.
Yeah, and it was
It wasn't good.
Yeah, I just felt so powerless,
you know what I mean?
I felt in a way that I never felt in
almost my 30 years being in this country.
I think I feel what other people say it
when they say that sometimes the
justice system is not made for everybody.
I was the one who said to her, you know,
"Baby, you need to go the cops."
You know, "You need to report this."
So I feel like, you know what I mean,
like, I I sent my daughter
to these freaking people here.
You know what I mean?
I could easily say, you know what?
Don't worry about it, you know.
It's just hard wheneveryou do
everything that you're supposed to,
and things like that happen, you know?
I'm Laura Dunn, counsel for defendant.
The judge believed me.
That's all I wanted from the first place
uh, the first time around,
and I'm just
I'm still out of words for it,
but it meant a lot more than anything
when he said not guilty.
This was a huge ruling.
False recantations happen
when law enforcement
don't approach victims the right way
and don't support them
and don't believe them at every step.
And I hope that changes,
just this county and perhaps even broader,
and you'll be part of that.
You'll be the reason for that.
Dyanie, you did the hard work,
for real like
It feels so good to have to have won,
but there's so many pieces
to still pick up of her.
Like they left
a lot of damage in the wake.
It's not so simple.
She wants to be a law enforcement officer.
She had wanted to intern at the FBI
right before this happened.
They took that from her.
They took all of it from her.
Before the story comes out, we, you know
we want to reach out to them again.
Like, just so you know,
-this is what we're saying in our article.
-Yes.
The question
with the headline is,
how do you accurately portray the story?
She reported her rape to police,
and when they didn't believe her,
or something, you know, just a
She reported a rape.
She ended up in handcuffs
or something like--
-Yeah.
-Or we could play with something like
when a victim flips to a suspect.
Mm-hmm. Or police charged her
with lying after they lied to her.
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
What does it take to fight one
of these charges? To get justice?
So, for Dyanie to get justice,
it took, you know, at least half a dozen
people that she had to bring on board,
hundreds of hours of work,
and it would have been
tens of thousands
of dollars of legal help.
For And that's one case.
As I get closer to publishing,
there's one question
I keep coming back to.
I just
I just have this question.
So if police aren't believing someone,
why not just dismiss the case?
Why go through the trouble
of making arrests?
Those are easy.
All If I can get her to recant,
I'm done.
I I I get an arrest
and don't have to do a full investigation,
and that's just another one off my desk.
Or they cleared the sexual assault
with an arrest,
and that's the arrest of the victim.
And then you you go out,
and you shame her.
They're gonna teach
that person the lesson.
When a false report's made like this,
then the person that makes
a report such as that,
you know, they
they need to suffer the consequences.
The main effect is
the chilling effect.
They are chilling the reporting
of sexual assault
because other victims
are going to be afraid to come forward.
So the message they send
to all the sexual assault survivors
in their community
is that if the police don't believe you,
they might prosecute you.
First, you report
being sexually assaulted,
and then you have the police
calling you a liar.
Then the police
will sometimes post about this
on their own social media accounts.
The sheriff's office
says Dyanie Bermeo also reported the
Journalists pick
this up and republish it
without their own investigation.
'Cause you're no longer
a sexual assault victim,
you do not have that right
to privacy anymore.
Once your name is in the press,
it's everywhere.
You can't put it back.
To Mrs. Yovino,
I really hope you get the full two years
'cause you fucking deserve it.
These young women have no idea,
when they go to report an assault,
what could happen to them.
Most of the victims
in sexual assault are
between ages of 14 and 26.
So you're dealing
with somebody that's really young,
and they just don't understand
how it works.
Even adults don't know how it works,
but, um
Yeah.
Why do you care so much?
Uh
Good question. Um
My sister was sexually assaulted.
Twice.
The first time she was 13.
She came home,
my mom called the police, they did zero.
They didn't even take a report.
And my sister got heavily into drugs,
and, um and I a lot of that
was from what happened to her.
And, um she became addicted,
and then when she was 17 years old,
she was raped by two two males
and, uh, two suspects.
Cops came out.
Did nothing.
And my sister just struggled
for the rest of her life.
And I I know it came from that.
So, I
I look at my victims, and I see
I see her.
That's why.
I want to thank you
for coming in today.
I'm here to help you. Okay?
- You went to the party?
- Yeah.
- Okay. Okay.
- I got too drunk.
And I got sick.
I should have just gone home.
What I think needs to be done is,
obviously, training.
You have detectives
who've never been trained in sex crimes,
especially in smaller agencies.
If you asked a question twice,
then the victim feels, you know,
you're doubting them.
Just bear in mind,
if you do it too much, down the road,
she's gonna be thinking you know--
- You don't believe me.
- Right.
- Or even paying attention.
- You're not paying attention.
You're not listening.
A lot of detectives will come up to me,
they're like, "Yeah, we really want
to work these cases but no training."
But I'm telling you right now,
if you continue to lie to me,
this is about to go south.
I'm not lying. I'm not.
They were treating the victim
in the same interview as a suspect.
Of course
there's gonna be inconsistencies.
Which we already established,
the inconsistencies.
They automatically started kind of putting
the burden of proof on the victim.
We've been talking all day today
about, uh, two survivors
that are gonna come in
and do their, uh, impact statement.
And they're here today. Uh, honestly,
I've been training a long time,
and to get survivors to come in
to talk at on any level,
uh, is a really tough thing to do.
Do I want to go up in front
all these cops and tell them this?
No, not really.
I don't wanna hear, "I'm sorry."
- Yeah, that one.
- Like I like
Like you didn't do this to me.
- I've had enough
- Of I'm sorry's.
- like, of pity cries for Emma.
- Yes.
I That's not
That's not where I'm at.
And And I know that
case to case is different,
longevity is diff
Like, this is year five for me.
To the right.
I was 18 years old.
I was raped
in the back of a vehicle by a stranger
with his friend
who stood outside the car watching.
I walked through my statement
and was bluntly told by the detective
that they did not believe me.
That he wanted to help me,
but he couldn't help a liar.
I fell victim to a rapist
and was never given
the privilege or dignity
to process my assault.
If a survivor is coming to you,
and they need your help,
and you don't help them,
there's a monster walking around free.
If you assume immediately
that they're lying,
if you feel like your job would be easier
if it was swept under the rug,
or if you're tired of all the paperwork,
find a new career.
I thought they were coming down
to the campus to help me,
but in reality, they came down
ready to interrogate me.
There is a law saying, like, you know,
police officers can lie to people,
and it's okay.
I'm very sorry,
and I'm telling you right now,
I don't think you should lie
to sexual assault survivors.
I applaud you all for being here,
but I think this should
be standard practice across the board.
This is a problem we can solve.
We need to ensure
that police departments are not relying
on a victim recantation as their evidence
that no crime was committed or attempted.
If they close a sexual assault case
without a thorough investigation,
if they accuse the victim
without evidence,
then they should be held accountable
and risk losing federal funding.
So much of my investigation
was focused on police process.
But it's also the prosecutors,
legislators, the judges, even the mayors.
There is an institution of people
who allow it to happen.
I've been working
on this story for four years
and found about 200 cases so far
where alleged victims of sexual assault
were turned into suspects.
It's impossible to say
how often law enforcement is doing this,
but here's what we do know.
There are
more than 460,000 sexual assaults
in the United States every year.
Only 30% of those
are reported to the police,
and only 1% of perpetrators
are ever prosecuted.
There's so little justice for victims,
and when law enforcement
turns them into the suspects,
it demands the question,
is reporting worth the risk?
This was
my first big solo investigative piece.
It's nerve-racking.
I mean, I don't know if I'll sleep
the night that this comes out,
to be honest with you.
There's a lot of power
that stories like this can have.
Look, I'm sorry if I'm, you know,
pestering you at this point,
but I it's really important
that I speak with you.
Anybody in my story,
I want them to be aware of it.
That it's coming out.
Gonna be quite a few people
that won't like this story,
but that's you know, that's journalism.
That's journalism, baby.
The footage shows Emma
walking with the alleged assailants
moments before her alleged assault.
It corroborates exactly her description
of where she was and with whom.
It was just myself, Steven,
the guy in the blue shirt, and.
From the Center
for Investigative Reporting and PRX,
this is Reveal.
Today, we're talking with reporter,
Rae de Leon
about her yearslong investigation
that raises troubling questions about
how police investigate sexual assault.
- Hi, Al.
- Hey, Rae.