L.A.’s Liability at Issue : Jury Hears Final Pleas in Rape by Policeman

A woman who was raped in her Northridge home by an on-duty Los Angeles police officer five years ago is asking $500,000 in a suit against the city for physical and emotional damage she suffered in the assault, her attorney told jurors during closing arguments Wednesday.

The woman, a 31-year-old mother of two, testified that she has developed a drinking problem, gained 75 pounds and suffered a loss of sex drive because of the attack. The jury begins deliberations today in the civil suit against the City of Los Angeles and former police Sgt. Leigh B. Schroyer. The trial began three weeks ago before Superior Court Judge Carlos E. Velarde.

Assistant City Atty. Flora Trostler disputed the injury claims, and told jurors that the city is not liable because, when Schroyer entered the woman’s home, he was violating department policy and was “no longer acting in the scope of his employment.” Schroyer was convicted of the 1981 rape and served 18 months in state prison.

Once Schroyer was inside the woman’s apartment, “he wasn’t a police officer . . . he was Lee Schroyer, a man,” Trostler said in her closing argument. “The city is not responsible for every little thing a police officer does.”

Says City Is Responsible

But the woman’s attorney, Vann H. Slatter, argued that the city is responsible for the action of its employees, even if they are breaking the law. “The city is stuck with the fact that the rape occurred while this man was on duty and exercising his authority,” Slatter told jurors.

Schroyer, who was a 15-year LAPD veteran, resigned after the incident and still contends that the woman consented to have sex with him, Trostler said. He was found guilty of raping the woman in her house after stopping her on suspicion of drunk driving and then offering to drive her home. Schroyer, who now lives in another state, has not responded to the civil suit and is expected to default if a judgment is made, Slatter said.

Says Injuries Exaggerated

Trostler told jurors that the woman exaggerated her injuries and changed parts of her testimony. Some of the woman’s emotional problems existed before the rape and others came about because she waited two years after the assault before seeking psychiatric counseling, Trostler said.

“She sat there and let herself gain weight, let herself continue to drink, let herself continue to be a sloppy housekeeper, let herself engage in a not-so-healthy sex life,” Trostler told jurors. “ . . . She let herself drown in her own sorrows when she had a duty to take care of herself.”

Although conceding that the 1981 rape may have caused the woman “short-duration trauma,” Trostler said, “I don’t think it caused everything.” Trostler said the woman is blaming her problems on the 1981 rape for economic gain.

Slatter told jurors that Trostler’s attack on the woman’s credibility was an effort to “shift the focus away from Leigh Schroyer, the rapist.”