Woman Sues Rapist and Wins $5 Million

Eight years after she was raped in a Hollywood Hills home, a Los Angeles woman won a $5-million civil judgment Tuesday against the man she said had not paid for the emotional trauma that she suffered when he spent six years in prison for the crime.

A Superior Court jury deliberated for less than a day before awarding $2 million in general damages and $3 million in punitive damages to Lori Brown Nelsen, a commercial producer who said she was attacked by part-time actor Gary Wayne Brown when she stopped briefly at his house, after a scenic drive in 1978.

Brown, who did not defend himself in the case, had filed a cross-complaint alleging that Nelson had seduced him and claimed that she was raped only after he insisted that she leave his home.

“It’s important that rapists realize that they are in fact responsible for the emotional distress inflicted, as well as being responsible for serving the sentence that a criminal jury would ask of them,” said Nelsen, 30, who said that she has been unable to function normally since the attack and fears that her children may need therapy as well.

The verdict was one of only a few awarded in what attorney Gloria Allred said is a growing number of civil lawsuits filed by rape victims against their attackers in an attempt to recover damages.

“This case has been important because rape victims have shown that they can and will fight back,” Allred said. “As a result of this case, we send this message to rapists: It is not a question of if you will be caught. It is only a question of when.”

Nelsen said it took nearly a year to persuade prosecutors to file criminal charges against Brown--even though he had been arrested seven times on rape charges since 1970, had a prior conviction of having sex with a minor and other women stood ready to testify that they had been raped at his home.

It was only after Nelsen’s boyfriend Stewart Nelsen (now her husband) was arrested in 1979 for running down Brown in his car--and ordered to pay him $2,700 for medical bills--that Brown was tried and convicted of rape and forcible oral copulation in the attack against Nelsen and a separate incident involving another woman.

Nelsen said she was newly arrived in Los Angeles from Iowa when Brown struck up a conversation at a local park and offered to take her on a scenic drive through the Hollywood Hills. He insisted that she accompany him when he stopped at his house to change his shirt, then immediately bolted the door when she entered the house, Nelsen said.

During the attack, Brown “told me, ‘Oh, you could be a Playboy bunny, you look like you’re right out of Playboy,’ ” Nelsen said.

Since then, Nelsen said, she has become anxious and even physically ill at the sight of movies and advertisements depicting women “as sexual objects” and has required therapy to deal with the problem.

She said she worries that in future years she will be too protective of her son and daughter, now ages 2 and 4.

“I can see that they will need someone else in their life just to balance me,” she said.

Allred said she is not sure yet how she will begin to collect the judgment against Brown, who has been out of jail less than five months.

“Whether or not Lori ever collects anything, she is happy that she has gone as far as she has,” Allred said, adding that Nelsen may at least be able to collect regular payments for therapy from Brown.

“That judgment will follow him around for the rest of his life,” she said.