The credit Cy Vance deserves
In 1993, I was raped at gunpoint by a stranger. I felt violated and ashamed of what happened. But after escaping to my apartment, my roommate convinced me to go to the hospital to undergo a rape kit exam. At the time, DNA collection was in its infancy, but I understood that it was our best chance at catching the man who did this to me. Once all the evidence had been collected from my body, I waited for news that my perpetrator had been found.
I waited and waited, and for a long time, justice never came. Fourteen years later, I testified at trial against the man who raped me. Victor Rondon ultimately was convicted of all eight counts against him.
In the years before they had found Rondon, I had resigned myself to the fact that the man who raped me would never be found. But the thought that he was still out there harming others plagued me. Now, he is off the street and in jail for a long time.
During all the years that I waited, New York City tackled its rape kit backlog, testing 17,000 rape kits. That represented 17,000 survivors like me who had come forward looking for justice.
While the rape kit backlog had been eliminated in New York City under former Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, his successor, Cy Vance, picked up the mantle and has gone even further to bring justice to sex assault victims.
Vance is now in the spotlight, with critics claiming he did too little to pursue a sex assault allegation against Harvey Weinstein. I think more attention ought to be paid to his advocacy on behalf of sexcrimes victims. It is little understood, and I consider it downright heroic.
In 2014, Vance announced that $38 million in funding gained through asset forfeiture settlements would go towards addressing the national backlog of untested rape kits. That was a timely, bold and important commitment.
While New York had made significant progress, the rape kit backlog continues to be a national crisis, with hundreds of thousands of rape kits left untested on shelves across the country.
Vance’s investment means a massive 56,000 previously untested rape kits — 56,000 survivors of sexual assault just like me, in 32 jurisdictions across 20 states — will ultimately be tested. It also means our justice system will have 56,000 opportunities to bring closure to victims living in fear that their perpetrator is still out there.
I am telling my story because I want other survivors to know that even if attaining justice takes time, having a persistent advocate in the Manhattan DA’s office brought me the closure I so desperately needed, and put a very dangerous man away.
Recent scandals exposing alleged sexual assaults committed by powerful men are important in bringing attention to a complicit culture. The survivors who have come forward need to be applauded and empowered.
But while awareness is a critical step in combating an epidemic of violence against women, bold action is needed more than ever.
That’s why it is so important that we not take one tiny piece of Vance’s record — in this case, the fact that his office didn’t pursue charges against Weinstein in a 2015 case of forcible touching — and magnify it out of all proportion, in a way that obscures the tremendous good he’s done for women, and more good that can be done if we learn from his example.
Every year, the Manhattan district attorney’s office prosecutes thousands of sexual assault cases like mine, bringing resolution to unnamed victims from all walks of life. This work is generally done without accolades or fanfare.
In the wake of the news surrounding these high-profile sexual predators, it is easy to point fingers and place blame squarely on the shoulders of one person, one incident, one decision.
The truth is, it’s not that simple. Every day, victims are silenced. Sexual assault and harassment is normalized. Rape kits are left untested.
Instead of looking for convenient scapegoats, it’s time that we demand practical changes for sexual assault victims. New York’s sex crimes statutes at long last need to be updated to lessen the burden of proof prosecutors need in proving a suspect’s motive. The statute of limitations on all types of sexual assaults should be removed. And jurisdictions should be mandated to test rape kits within a reasonable timeframe.
By focusing on what we can pragmatically do now to support sexual assault survivors and bring perpetrators to justice, we can work toward ending sex crimes in the future.