We will not use her name or identify the suspect who has not, to this date, been charged.
Don’t trust that any cop will get the story right.
Ask for the recorded written reports about your rape immediately after they have been entered into the system and contest any contradictory statements from the story you understand to be true.
When able, always record every interaction with police about your case using your own devices, your smartphone.
Understand that cops will cover up their own mistakes in their reports and use the law to redact those flaws in their reports. Don’t ever say you don’t know if you didn’t consent to sex, even if you don’t remember.
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Here is my story
The night of August 29, 2014 was a Friday. The house was quiet, my son safe at my mom’s house, and I poured myself a cocktail.
As I sat alone in the house, I thought back on seeing my granny just a couple of weeks before — the first time in years.
I thought about how wonderful a new relationship would have been after our spontaneous reconciliation but she had just died the night before.
I was sad, alone and wanted to go out. I hadn’t been out in months. I was single and decided to visit a dive bar I had frequented on my own for over a decade. I was friends with the bartenders and the owner. I would often form friendships with patrons and even a couple of guys I met there turned into relationships.
I figured I would be safe.
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I Did Not Consent
If you think you were raped, always say, I did not consent. If you were unconscious or blacked out, then you were not able to consent. Period. Don’t let the cops tell you otherwise. Know that the cops, police chiefs and district attorneys and prosecutors want to win.
Being passed out or blacked out is not an easy win for them so you may need to keep insisting on talking to the sex crimes detective to push your case forward as well as get your own rape kit done.
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The Sans Souci Bar
From about 5-9, I had three to four drinks at home. Then I headed on my bicycle to Sans Souci in Ventura, California, a familiar dive bar, about six blocks from my house.
It was quiet at the bar but there were two girls, sisters, drinking and hanging out. The more gregarious sister, a blonde woman named Kristen, invited me to hang out with them.
At the bar, I had two-three beers and bought everyone a shot.
From 9-11:30 we stayed at Sans Souci and then the women suggested we go to The Tavern, a popular nightclub. It was less than two blocks from my house. I agreed to go.
Once we arrived, the girls bought me a drink. Outside on the patio, we met two guys. I left them all talking to each other and I went around taking pictures and video of the nightlife.
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Keep the Evidence
Keep any and all evidence such as bed sheets and any clothing left behind. Don’t lose faith in the idea that you were hurt. You were. Hold onto it. You will often be your only advocate.
If the cops do help you and ask to use your phone to download texts regarding your rape with those who may be witness to it, don’t trust that the cops to take only what they promise to take.
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Waking Up
Shortly after midnight, my night went black.
Waking up lucid dreaming. That’s what must be happening. Sexual activity. A man is on me, in me. We are having sex. He is endowed. I can’t see his face. Then he changed positions and …. OUCH! You’re hurting me! Wait. Wait!
“What’s going on?” I ask.
He doesn’t respond. I push him off me. “I need to get a drink of water.”
I stumble naked from my bed, my head is hurting, my privates are hurting. Walking out of my bedroom, I look over the balcony to my couch downstairs.
“Who the hell are you?”
I shouted to the man sitting below, in the dark, with a hoodie hiding his face. “I’m waiting for my friend,” he responded. “What the hell is going on?” I said to the man in the bedroom. The man was getting dressed, in a hurry.
I went to my room to get some clothes when he ran past me and down the stairs. As I rushed to get some clothes on, I heard the front door close. I looked down from the balcony again— they were gone.
“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!”
I shouted to an empty room and then I noticed my keys and lip gloss on the floor next to the front door.
Next to the door is a coat rack where I hung my purse — I went downstairs to check my open purse. My wallet was gone.
“WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?” again, I yelled to an empty room, scanning it in a panic to make sure nothing else had been stolen.
Then I called the police. “911. what are you reporting?”
The female dispatcher said. “Um .. Someone was here?”
“I brought someone home and they stole my fucking wallet and they took everything from me. (sobbing),” I said.
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5:30 a.m. Knock
At 5:30 a.m., not too much later after my 911 call, a male patrol officer knocked on my door; I let him in.
“They stole my wallet,” I said, weeping, sobbing (no recording so I don’t know my exact words but I recall some things I said, though surely not every exact word). “I went out, I drank, I woke up having sex and there were two men in here and they stole my wallet.”
The words he spoke to me are fuzzy. My heart was racing, I was sobbing. I had been betrayed. I had been duped. I had been robbed.
“Hysterical woman …, “ he said into his walkie-talkie on his shoulder. “OK, ma’am. You need to calm down. … So I am taking the report that your wallet was stolen. Anything else?”
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OPEN RECORDS REQUEST
It will not be the standard for police or prosecutors to follow through on such cases. If you want police body camera footage of the officer who took your report or you get a rape kit done via the police department or public entity, the police department or public entity may tell you that you need a subpoena to obtain them.
Ignore them.
Through a public record request online through the city, these records can be obtained. If you want to know if you were drugged, call your local hospital for a drug test.
They may tell you they do not take such tests, the police may tell you that you were not drugged or you may be told the drug will have disappeared from your system.
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Betrayed and Helpless
“I’ve been betrayed. I am so helpless,” I cried.
“YOU MAY HAVE BEEN DATE RAPED.“
To clarify the truth, I was home and there were two men in my apartment. It was only logical to conclude I invited someone to my home and that I got home safely on my own accord.
Between 8 and 9, I also called a friend at the Ventura Police Department.
“Hey, my wallet was stolen and I think I was raped last night.”
“What?!” He replied.
“I called the police around 5 a.m. after two men ran from my house, one was having sex with me and woke me up. Another was on the couch.
I yelled at them, trying to figure out what was happening. Then the two men ran out of the door with my wallet.”
“Oh my god. Are you OK?”
“I don’t know. Everything was such a blur. I am so dehydrated. My head hurts. My vision is all screwed up, a sort of iridescent glow, like I am coming down from sort of drug. It’s not like being hungover. It’s MUCH worse.”
“You may have been date raped,” he said. “You should call the hospital and see if they will test for date rape drugs.”
“The officer who took your report, did you tell him you thought you were raped?” My friend asked.
“No. Everything was such a blur,” I said. “I wanted to immediately address my stolen wallet. Then I started piecing things together. This was orchestrated. They had a plan to run when I came to. I know it.”
“Ok. Let me call the watch commander and he will send someone to take your report about the rape,” he replied.
“Thanks.”After I hung up with my friend, I took the elevator to see if anything else had been left behind. There it was, sitting in the Corner. Discarded from my coin purse — a rare raw pearl I had almost cracked a tooth at brunch on a visit to Sedona, a celebration trip after I had gone into remission from cancer in 2011.
Not all was lost. It was now about 10 a.m.
I had called my bank and credit card companies to alert them that my wallet was stolen. I had no cash on me so I had to go to the bank. Walking to the bank, I made a call.
“This is ‘Lucy.’ How can I help you?” I called the nurse line at the hospital (I don’t recall name of nurse).
“I think someone drugged me last night. I was blacked out for five hours and I don’t know what happened.”
“We don’t test for date rape drugs. You probably just had too much to drink. It happens to the best of us.” She hung up on me.
WATCH COMMANDER
“Hi. This is the watch commander from Ventura PD. I heard you had a rough night.”
“I did. I just don’t understand why I can’t remember a damn thing for five hours. You know, I have been out before; I am not a novice drinker. I remember things throughout a given night but last night, five hours just gone. And then this guy, I don’t know him, he is having sex with me and he hurt me and woke me up. Then I saw the guy downstairs and yelled at him, ‘What’s going on?’ Then they grabbed my wallet and bolted.”
“Well, we have all done that — gone out and gotten too drunk and forgot what happened. That’s probably what happened,” he said.
“I’m pretty sure I had two dudes taking turns on me,” I retorted. “That’s crazy. I wouldn’t ask for that in any drunken stupor. Then they stole my wallet.”
“I will send over a beat officer. His name is Quinn.”
PEOPLE WILL PUT YOU DOWN
You will feel helpless and not cared for. People will put you down, tell you that you need mental health help, most won’t have time for you. And it’s ok. Because they don’t understand.
You will hear, “it’s he said, she said,” and it is too hard to prove you were raped. Don’t believe them. Just keep your head up and move forward. There will be someone to listen and help eventually.
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FRIEND HELPING SOLVE CRIME
The (bar) video showed me smiling, though I had to use the railing to stabilize and I almost stumbled down the stairs.
I was leaning into the man who had walked me out. He did not look Asian.
For the next two weeks, I was fuming mad, sad, upset, in shock. Simultaneously my friend was building a case to open an investigation into my rape.
Finally, I get a call.
“Hi. I am a detective with sex crimes. I would like to talk to you about your case,” Sgt. Ruggerio said.
“Ok.” I felt some relief.
“I need you to go to the safe house to get a rape kit done,” he said.
“Ok.”
A couple of days later, I go in for a rape kit. I meet the nurse, who is kind and respectful. But she’s curious. “Why are you just coming in two weeks later?” she asked.
“The cop I had been referred to wouldn’t take my rape report and the nurse at the hospital said I just got too drunk. What was I supposed to do?”
“I got a call from a hospital nurse two weeks about a woman who called about being drugged after going out. That must have been you.”
“Probably. The nurse hung up on me.”
Then the examination began. I was still healing but getting better. “He tried to rape you anally. You are still torn. That must have been very painful.”
“It was. All of this has been very painful.”
She finished the exam and took some notes. She told me I could come back for counseling information. I never did.
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Police Chief Wilson Asked About Boss Gums.
Following the exam, the detective had me recall on video what happened, which was limited. It was recorded for the DAs office but what could I sa
y? I didn’t remember much. I also told him what Quinn said.
I recall vaguely that Quinn said that he did finally connect with Johnny, asking Johnny if he had any Asian friends (though Johnny was the Asian one by all appearances) and if Johnny had been at The Tavern, to which Johnny said no.
At the safe house, the detective asked me for my phone, to download text messages between Kristen and me, about Kristen identifying the Asian one as Johnny.
I told him there was only one set of messages he needed, which was between the girl I had met that night and me. And I told him only to take that string.
He acknowledged that and said fine.
Soon after, I found out he took everything. Violated AGAIN.
As the detective began his investigation, My friend contacted me and said we couldn’t text on his work phone. The detective downloaded all messages, including ones that I had deleted, specifically the conversation between my friend and me.
My friend then became the subject of an investigation.
My friend was under a lot of heat when I finally got a call from the assistant police chief. He wanted to do an interview about my text messages with my friend I agreed to meet him at City Hall and a few days later, we did.
After being informed I was being recorded, the Assistant Chief Dave Wilson asked me if my friend had ever called his boss gums. “Yes. But only because I made up that name for him.
His boss has baby teeth and big gums. He also called me weird after I met him at a press conference. So I call him gums.”
“Did he text you his boss’s address?”
“What? No. What are you talking about?”
“In this message, He texts that he dropped off his boss at his big home in Westlake. Do you recall that?”
“Yes, but that’s not an address. That’s a city. How the heck would I know what house was his? This is crazy. And you and I know we are both here only because your officer dropped the ball and didn’t take my rape case seriously.”
“Let’s stay on topic. Your friend is being investigated.”
“So this is about him calling his boss gums and that I know that his boss lives in Westlake? This is ridiculous.”
We went back and forth for a little bit more about nothing significant and then we parted ways.
A short while later, my friend calls. “They are serving me with a reprimand that will go on my permanent record about disclosing personal information about my boss.”
“You have to be kidding me.”
“They are also writing me up because I opened an investigation into your complaint about the rape. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“But no one was going to help me!”
“Oh, and they are promoting Quinn.”
I later found out Quinn got involved in law enforcement to help victims of domestic violence.
Around the same time, the detective had pulled together some pictures for me to pick out Johnny.
Any of those guys could have been him–I only saw his face for a few seconds before I shoved him off of me. I couldn’t pick him out.
The detective also told me the girl I met out that night, Kristen, would not return his contact attempts.
She also would not return my calls and texts.
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Finding “Johnny”
Eventually, I found Johnny of Oxnard on the Internet
He belonged to a bicycle club in Oxnard. I wanted to confront Johnny, to see Johnny, confirm it
was him, and then see him hurt the way he hurt me. But nothing. I did nothing. Two rapists and thieves get off because of misogyny in the police department. Where bros come before drugged/drunk “hoes.”
You may not at first logically conclude that you were raped.
Acknowledging that someone could use you and discard you is a bitter pill to swallow. You may even communicate feelings that contradict the injustice that occurred. Victims will do all sorts of things to try and not be on the losing end of a crime.
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Acknowledge Your Pain
You did not agree to this. REMEMBER THAT. Grieve your sense of loss of control. It’s OK. Do it by yourself, with your family, in a support group. Paint, write, draw. Do what you need to but whatever you do, don’t ignore the festering injustice you have endured. Acknowledge your pain.
Acknowledge your weaknesses and work to improve them so this never happens again. And how do I know this?
FOOTNOTE:
M. Sully provided American Justice Notebook the police reports and other evidence about her case, including a three-page letter dated Dec. 16, 2016 from attorney Lela Henke-Dobroth who apparently reviewed the case. Sully said she talked to Henke-Dobroth after a former officer with the Oxnard Police Department suggested it.
Henke-Dobroth, a former prosecutor, concluded that “based upon the facts above, it is my opinion that this is not a provable criminal case. No physical evidence was provided to the police. A medical-legal exam two weeks after the incident would very likely provide no evidence. Consent is a viable defense to the theory of rape. You have acknowledged that you may have consented. Various inconsistent statements would jeopardize your credibility in front of a jury and/or judge.”
“I wish you the best in the future.” – Henke-Dobroth concluded.
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