UPDATE
Pleading over spilled seed
Patty's attorney seeks further investigation
of evidence from alleged sexual assault
By BILL LUEDERS
Hal Harlowe, an attorney representing a Madison woman named Patty charged with a crime for allegedly fabricating a sexual assault, is trying to force prosecutors to submit evidence to testing he says might prove her version of events.
In a motion filed Monday in Dane County Court, Harlowe is seeking to require that DNA from semen samples found at the scene be compared against the State Crime Lab's DNA databank of known sex offenders.
"Matching the DNA found at the scene of the reported assault with DNA in the databank would further exculpate the defendant by establishing not only that she had been raped, but also the identity of her assailant," wrote Harlowe in his motion.
Harlowe's pleading states that bed sheets stained with semen were recovered from Patty's bed on Sept. 4, 1997, the day she reported being raped at knife-point by an intruder in her east-side home. But apparently police neglected to turn this evidence over to the State Crime Lab for analysis. It wasn't until June 29, 1998, that the semen was discovered and a DNA profile obtained.
Patty recanted her rape report a month after the alleged assault, when police confronted her with their conclusion that she made the whole thing up. The Dane County DA's Office is charging her with obstructing an officer, a misdemeanor.
At a motion hearing July 9, Madison Police Det. Tom Woodmansee admitted that he used deception in getting Patty to confess. He testified telling Patty that "evidence that was analyzed at the State Crime Lab showed no sign of a sexual assault"--but not that some of the evidence was never sent for analysis.
Harlowe's motion says subsequent testing done by the Crime Lab showed that the DNA from the semen did not match those of any known person--including anyone with whom Patty had consensual relations. Among those tested was the man Patty told police she suspected but could not positively identify because of her visual disability. But it also leaves the DA's Office with no explanation for how semen from an unknown male happened to end up at the scene, even as it prosecutes Patty for allegedly fabricating the assault.
No one from the DA's Office was able to comment on whether it intends to oppose Harlowe's motion, or why it has not acted on its own to have DNA from the semen sample compared to profiles in the State Crime Lab's data bank. Patty's trial is slated for Sept. 1 and 2.