Local officials ‘prepared’ for probe if asked

The chief of police and the state’s attorney in Montgomery County, Maryland, said they are not investigating sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh but are “prepared to investigate any allegation, should a victim come forward.”

In a letter responding to a petition from county legislators, Montgomery County Police Chief J. Thomas Manger and State’s Attorney John McCarthy said they believe the decision to report a sexual assault “must be made by the survivor.”

“To date, there have been no criminal reports filed with the Montgomery County Department of Police that would lead to the initiation of any criminal investigation related to Judge Kavanaugh,” they wrote.

A group of state legislators from the county had called on police and prosecutors to investigate allegations that Kavanaugh committed one or more sexual assaults while a high school student at Georgetown Prep in the 1980s. They asked authorities not to wait for an alleged victim to make a complaint to them before starting an investigation.

Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s nominee to fill a Supreme Court vacancy, has denied the allegations against him.

In their letter Tuesday, the legislators said they were writing to “express our concern about the need for an investigation into recent high-profile allegations of sex assault in our county. … We believe local law enforcement has the authority to investigate allegations of crimes without need for a formal complaint, and we further believe third parties have standing to bring such complaints.”

But Manger and McCarthy said they agreed with experts that “the willingness of a survivor to come forward to law enforcement is an important factor in any criminal investigation.”

The two also noted that under laws that existed in 1982, assault and attempted rape were both misdemeanors subject to a one-year statute of limitations.

Brett Kavanaugh