Jane Doe No More

by M. William Phelps

  Cancer treatment, Donna and her doctors decided, would have to wait until the trial was over.

  The city made an eleventh-hour offer of a financial settlement. Within that offer was the claim that city officials would “work with” Donna regarding her demands for changes in policy and procedure.

  Sitting, listening to the offer, however, I realized that it was a half-hearted attempt once again to buy me off. I got a sense the money was a way to purchase my silence. How easy would it have been for me, I considered, to take this money and begin my fight against cancer. The money, nearly a quarter of a million dollars, would certainly help in that regard. Everyone told me to take it. But I thought, This is my life! My reputation had been irreversibly damaged. I would never be the same person in this community. Some people would always doubt my story and view me as a liar. If I accepted a payout, it would have given those who don’t believe me more reason not to. More important, how would other rape victims hiding in the community, afraid to come forward, feel? The city had pushed me around for over seven years. I needed to go to trial as much to set the record straight—and publicize this fiasco—as to bring Jane Doe out from behind the curtain and into the spotlight, simply so she could speak for women victimized and re-victimized by the system. After all, I felt, I probably was not the WPD’s only victim. How many more victims were being mistreated?

  Donna was now forty-four years old. It was January 5, 2001, when opening arguments in Jane Doe v. Douglas Moran, et al., began. Donna and John should have been celebrating John’s birthday; instead, they were heading into court.

  Each side took its respective role and laid its case out for the jury. After both unassuming opening statements were made and the 911 call from the night of the crime was played, the most important person involved in the case took the stand.

  Donna appeared strong despite shaking a little and feeling on the verge of tears. But she had no trouble talking jurors through every last aspect of being the victim of a brutal sexual assault inside her home during the only time her husband had been away in all the years of their marriage. And then the tale of betrayal unfolded, as Donna spoke of how, when she needed the police the most, they had turned their backs on her and made her feel as though she should question herself.

  As she sat for what turned out to be nearly three days on the witness stand, Donna talked about hearing those footsteps that changed her life.

  The sound of the attacker’s voice.

  How he smelled.

  That she believed he had a gun.

  How he covered her face and tied her up.

  Threatened to kill her.

  And then, without warning, disappeared into the night.

  But that was only the half of it, she explained.

  Raped once, she turned to the WPD for help but, within a few weeks, felt as though she had been assaulted all over again, this time by Douglas and Robert Moran.

  “Here he is,” Donna told jurors at one point, “threatening me . . . I left there believing I was going to be arrested. I have never been unfaithful to my husband. I was a victim. Now, I was being attacked by the police. It was too much for me to bear.”

  As she answered questions on the witness stand, it did not take long for the local press to begin what Donna later called “their biased reporting” of the case. Instead of allowing the testimony to speak for itself, one local newspaper account seemed to editorialize the cross-examination Donna endured by the city’s attorneys. Those lawyers, Cheryl Hricko and Jayne Welch, according to Donna, were relentless in their attack on her character, and the local press never questioned that strong-armed tactic of trying to beat down the alleged victim of a rape until she cracked. In her questioning of Donna, Hricko “maintained that police did a thorough investigation that revealed some oddities and inconsistences in the case . . .”

  Hricko’s argument banged the “no forced entry” drum the WPD had been beating for years. It cited inconsistencies in lab reports, and the idea that the “evidence” left at the scene did not support what Donna had told police. That rumormonger, the “confidential informant” Moran had used as the main source for his accusation of an extramarital affair, was now being called “an outside source,” as he was introduced (anonymously) by Hricko.

  Not to Donna’s surprise, because she and John had already found out during the evidence phase leading up to trial, Hricko produced a tape recording of that day when Donna and John sat with Captain Robert Moran and Phil Post. The WPD had secretly recorded the interview so many years ago when Donna and John had made their complaint about Douglas Moran and his finger-in-the-chest accusations against Donna.

  On top of the fold of the local newspaper following the first day’s testimony, the headline read: TRIAL: Woman sticks to story that she was raped.

  “Sticks to story.” The phrase struck Donna as catering to the WPD, as though there was still a question about Donna being sexually assaulted. It was Donna who had brought the suit against the city, not the other way around. For Donna and John, the way the article was written told a story unto itself—to some, she was guilty by walking into the courtroom.

  On Wednesday, January 10, 2001, Kathy Wilson took the stand and verified that Donna “fit the rape category.” In one contradictory breath, however, Wilson then explained that Donna’s crime-scene reactions weren’t distraught enough. And then she switched back to another description, saying Donna was wandering the scene like a “lost soul.” Wilson ultimately used language like “flippant” to describe how Donna acted after she had claimed to have been sexually assaulted. To listen to Wilson, a woman who had been trained in how to manage, speak to, and deal with a sexual assault victim, one might get the idea that Donna’s irregular and inconsistent behavior was a red flag. The problem with this testimony, though, was that Donna’s behavior, the way in which Wilson described it, was actually textbook. It was completely in line with what any rape victim might do moments after being attacked.

  Finally, Wilson agreed when asked by Donna’s attorney, Robert Kolesnick, Maureen Norris’s colleague, that she would definitely include Donna “in the category of sexual assault victims.”

  Throughout the next three days, a series of witnesses testified without surprise. George Lescadre, Neil O’Leary, Donna’s father, her sister, and IA investigator Joe Cass all stuck to their original deposition testimony. While Donna’s family members and O’Leary and Lescadre defended Donna’s position, Cass sided with the department.

  The next major hurdle that Donna’s attorneys had to overcome came from Lieutenant James Griffin, the (at that time) detective sergeant who happened to arrive at the scene that night and thought, almost immediately, that Donna’s story was questionable.

  Griffin’s biggest problem with the crime scene upstairs in Donna’s bedroom turned out to be the bedcovers, which were, Griffin explained, “turned down.” The contents of Donna’s pocketbook, which she claimed her attacker had gone through looking for money, were there on the bed in what Griffin called a “tidy pile . . . I thought it might have been inconsistent with a struggle,” the detective added. “It [the bed] was slept in,” he claimed, “but it wasn’t torn apart.”

  From there Griffin stayed firm in his desire to paint Donna as a victim who was acting erratically yet often with composure, not like a woman who had been brutally raped. Griffin called Donna “calm and lucid, but upset, don’t get me wrong . . .”

  Late into that same day, January 18, Robert Moran took the stand and defended his brother and the way the case was handled by the WPD, playing off anything and everything that was done to Donna as part of the process of getting to the truth. Remarkably, Moran admitted that he did not listen to the 911 call before ordering his little brother to reinterview Donna under a new, threatening hard line of questioning. The way he testified, one would believe that Moran took his brother’s word for fact, without looking into matters h
imself or even talking to other investigators working the same case. These were incredible statements, truly, by then-Captain Moran. It was the “inconsistencies in the case,” Robert Moran testified. Doug’s overbearing behavior and accusatory attitude toward Donna were needed in order to get to the truth after that “information” came in that she might have been lying about the assault to cover up an affair. Moran called his brother’s bullying a “very direct” line of questioning, “which might have made her feel abused.” Nonetheless, it was authorized because there were so many questions surrounding Donna’s story—questions that needed to be answered in order for the investigation to move forward.

  Dr. Henry Lee was the most well known of the witnesses to testify. His theories had been tested and retested and proven to be the best in the business of crime-scene reconstruction and analysis. Lee talked about the importance of “securing the crime scene and the necessary use for fingerprints, photographs, sketches, measurements, and detailed notes,” none of which were implemented in Donna’s case during those important moments after the call came in.

  “Assume there has been an assault in the master bedroom of a house and the outside phone lines have been cut, there was no sign of forced entry, and the victim had to flee for help,” Maureen explained.

  “Yes, I understand,” Lee answered.

  “What would be the perimeter that would need to be secured?”

  “In that particular case you describe, it would be the entire house on the outside. No one other than authorized personnel should be allowed in the house until it is processed entirely. You would secure the perimeter with the use of yellow crime-scene tape, or by positioning officers to be sure that no one could get through.”

  After Lee finished, Donna followed him out of the courtroom, catching up to the doctor in the hallway as he was heading for the door.

  “Thank you, Dr. Lee,” she said. Lee stood with Dr. Jerry Labriola, a longtime friend, colleague, and writing partner. Labriola had written several books on his own, but also a half-dozen books as Lee’s collaborator. “Congratulations on the new book,” Donna told them both. Two weeks prior, Labriola and Lee’s Famous Crimes Revisited: From Sacco-Vanzetti to O.J. Simpson had been published.

  “I appreciate that,” Labriola said.

  “Listen, Donna, if you need me for rebuttal testimony,” Lee explained, “I’ll be happy to come back. If I am not available, I can send a very qualified lab person in my place.”

  Donna was grateful. Lee’s heart, she knew, was in the place of justice based on the evidence. And that was all she had ever asked for.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Oddities

  Several more witnesses testified over the next two days, and the trial went into a weekend break. On the following Tuesday, January 23, Maureen Norris called David Johnson, a psychologist from Yale who had treated Donna for PTSD. The local newspaper covering the case from gavel to verdict called Johnson a “paid witness,” not missing an opportunity to try to diminish his—and possibly Donna’s—credibility. Yet by the time Johnson finished outlining his nine-page résumé, there were few inside the courtroom who could say that the man was not an expert in his chosen field and extraordinarily qualified to comment on what Donna had been through, whether he was being paid for his testimony or not.

  Johnson said there was no doubt in his professional opinion that Donna had been traumatized twice—once by the rape and a second time by the WPD, adding, “It completely turned her upside down. The sense of betrayal went very deep.”

  Concluding his testimony, Johnson reiterated a point that Maureen Norris had been leaning on as one of her main themes throughout the trial: that the “treatment Donna received by the police was more damaging to her emotional/mental state than the rape itself.”

  This concept was something Maureen and her team felt they needed to keep repeating.

  The following day, Doug Moran (now, quite incredibly, a captain in the WPD) casually walked into the courtroom, his head held high, an unmistakable smirk on his face. As the proceedings began, he would, Donna later said, “Bring a book every day and . . . sit there reading as if he was in a library instead of a courtroom, unfazed by what was happening around him.”

  Donna felt sick watching Moran stroll in as if it was just another day in the life of a cop. She had already listened to one lie after the next told about her by a series of witnesses paraded into the courtroom to bolster the WPD’s position and protect the Moran brothers. The good ol’ boys club was alive and well, in action in the courtroom, pointing fingers at Donna, now making her out to be a money-hungry adulteress who would stop at nothing to win a lawsuit and protect her community standing from an affair’s scarring effects.

  Moran continued to ring a bell that had become a familiar sound during the trial for many of the city’s witnesses—the “oddities” surrounding Donna’s demeanor after the rape. The way Donna acted was front and center in this trial, and Moran was there to explain how nothing Donna did after her alleged attack made sense to him. In fact, he recalled, when he looked at her behavior closer, the more it seemed obvious to him that she was lying.

  Moran talked again about there being no forced entry. He found it “odd” that Donna had left her sleeping children home alone with a supposedly armed rapist running around the neighborhood. He also said it would be, in his professional opinion, “unusual for a burglar to be armed,” as Donna had claimed. An additional mitigating factor for Moran, something that for him did not add up, was that Donna’s “panties were cut off . . .” In most rape crimes, Moran stated, the victim’s underwear was “ripped off,” or the victim was “forced to undress.”

  There had been a standard, apparently, for rape scenes that Moran had followed at the time.

  Then Moran talked about the “tip” he had received from his “confidential informant.” Because that tip included information about the children waking up and catching Donna in the act, and because Donna was constantly opposed to her children being interviewed by the police, Moran was utterly convinced of her guilt, he said.

  When Maureen questioned Moran about the tape recording from September 1993, he said he did not destroy the tape intentionally and denied adding documents to Donna’s case file in the hope of covering up mistakes he had made.

  I was disgraced and fighting for my dignity and emotional security, as well as my integrity. This, mind you, while a cancer grew inside me and my rapist sat on the sidelines and watched all of this. For all I knew, he could have been inside the courtroom watching the proceedings. One of the biggest factors fueling the spread of cancer is stress. That’s no secret. I was at my limit as Doug Moran testified. One by one, Lieutenant Moran and his boys turned out to ridicule me. They proceeded to tell one lie after another. At one point, the city’s lawyer, obviously shooting for histrionics, screamed, “Without a rape . . . there cannot be any damages!”

  One of the things helping Donna get through it all was the writing she was doing during the trial: sometimes in the courtroom, sometimes at home in the quiet of the calm, cold winter darkness. It was comforting for Donna to think about what she wanted to say and put her thoughts together on paper. Throughout the trial, as each witness testified, Donna took notes and worked on ideas for Maureen’s closing argument. Part of what Donna wrote was not only cathartic for her, but inspiring and potentially life-changing as far as reaching jurors who might have been, while sitting and listening to the city’s witnesses, on the fence.

  So finally we are here—you the jury have a unique opportunity to make a statement about the wrongdoing by finding these officers and the Waterbury Police Department guilty. No one is above the law. People, including police officers, must be held accountable for their actions. This abuse of power on an innocent victim inflicted by the people we pay to protect us was especially and egregiously evil. You can’t put a price on what they have done to Jane
and John Doe. Their lives are forever changed. Please do the right thing and find the police department negligent and find Douglas Moran guilty of abusing this victim. We have proven guilt. Come back and rule in a significant way.

  Then Donna boiled the case down to why it was so important to her to receive absolute justice. It was clear that Donna Palomba’s fight was not going to end here in this courtroom, regardless of the verdict.

  Nothing will make the night of September 11, 1993, go away. But you have the power to stand up for what is right and just. You can help John and Jane Doe retrieve their dignity, and you can allow them a new start in the long road that lies ahead. The incident was tragic. The investigation was pathetic. But the integrity and honesty of Jane Doe can be publicly restored and, in fact, it should be. Please, in the name of justice, do the right thing and find in favor of Jane Doe. Send a message that investigating a violent crime is serious and policies and procedures need to be followed. Send a message that abusing an innocent victim of rape is not only wrong, but inexcusable.

  As the lawyers rolled out their closing arguments, the local newspaper reported that the “alleged rape victim wants $2.5M.” The headline made Donna seem like a woman looking for a payday. It mentioned nothing about Donna wanting, more than anything else, changes in policy and procedure within the WPD. She was being portrayed as someone looking to capitalize on a claim of being sexually assaulted—exactly what the WPD had been saying for the past seven-plus years.

  Donna wondered, after following the newspaper accounts of her trial, if there was some sort of conspiracy to protect her attacker, as if everyone knew who this person was, but did not want to come forward and identify him. Or perhaps there was simple arrogance and ignorance when it came to treating victims of sexual assault, which was one more reason Donna felt she needed to see this through. It seemed preposterous, sure, that a conspiracy could be unfolding in front of her; but Donna had been victimized twice, and many troubling things continually ran through her mind.