Rape Group Accused of ‘Smear’ List : Man Sues After Name Appears in Warnings

In the winter of 1984, Steve Carney’s name was getting a lot of exposure around town.

First his girlfriend’s father saw it tacked on a bulletin board outside a Safeway store. Then his boss’s wife noticed the name posted at a community center in this Santa Cruz suburb.

Carney also ran into an old high school chum who commented on his recent renown, producing from his wallet the particular piece of literature that was responsible for all the attention.

It was a list issued by Santa Cruz Women Against Rape, a 15-year-old organization dedicated to halting violence against women.

Under the heading Assault/Attempted Rape was a description of a well-mannered 18-year-old with rosy cheeks, perfect teeth and an upright posture. Right there for the world to see was Steve Carney’s name, his address and his place of employment (Longs Drug Store in Scotts Valley), even what kind of vehicles he drove.

Carney, now 22, said his first reaction was, “Great, my mom’s just gonna fall apart.”

Then, in January, 1985, he filed suit against Women Against Rape and the woman who supplied the biographical information that was printed, charging defamation, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Countersuit Filed

The woman, who countersued Carney for assault and battery and emotional distress, has settled out of court and does not want to be named, according to her attorney, Therese M. Stewart of San Francisco. The woman also would not comment for this story because, Stewart said, she wants to put the incident behind her.

But the pending court case will be watched by rape crisis centers across the country, according to Jan Shirchild of Women Against Rape, which is one of the oldest organizations of its kind. David Oppenheimer, the attorney representing Shirchild’s group, said he has fielded requests for advice from other anti-rape groups concerned about the implications of the Santa Cruz situation.

Oppenheimer, an assistant clinical professor at the University of San Francisco law school, said, “The reason there is such concern is that lawsuits do have a chilling effect on free speech. They make people afraid to speak. They are a very successful intimidation device.”

Carney’s attorney, David Sabih of Pacific Grove, said: “The purpose of this trial is to teach Women Against Rape to be responsible. I think they smeared the guy.”

According to depositions from both sides and an interview with Carney, the incident that triggered the court action began on the night of June 23, 1984.

Steve Carney was working as a clerk at Longs. (Today Carney is a store manager.) The woman, then 20 and an acquaintance, had been upset because she had been fighting with her boyfriend.

A mutual friend who also worked in the store suggested to Carney that the two of them take her out and cheer her up.

So the men bought two six packs of beer for themselves and a pint bottle of rum that the woman requested, and the three drove to a secluded spot off the highway where they could drink where the police wouldn’t see them, since two were minors.

They talked for a while, and then, according to Carney’s deposition, the woman began looking at him and his friend “in an affectionate manner.” Soon Carney was kissing her.

“She started drinking more than we did,” he said in the interview and his deposition. “She was going back and forth between (my friend) and me.”

Hazy Recollections

The woman, in her deposition, said her recollections of the incident are hazy because she had downed a third of the pint of rum. But, she said, she does recall that Carney and his friend partially removed her clothes and threatened to “give her the beer treatment” (pour beer on her) if she would not cooperate with them.

“I was drunk, I couldn’t move,” she said. “I didn’t give my consent. It was against my consent.”

What she did remember, according to her deposition, was that “somebody pulled my shirt up and was exposing my body . . . someone unzipped my pants.”

In his deposition, Carney said everyone had their clothes on, although he said that the woman’s shirt was “slightly unbuttoned” and that he unzipped her pants. “It escalated, but no more than would happen on a first date,” he added in the interview. He also said the woman did get some beer on her stomach, but only because it spilled out of his mouth. He said he had three or four beers during the evening.

Sometime around 2 a.m., the three of them drove back to where the woman’s car was parked, and they went home separately.

In the weeks following the incident, the woman said in her deposition, she tried to get an answer out of Carney and his friend (who was also named in the description list) about exactly what had happened that night, because she could not remember all the details.

She did not file criminal charges or report the matter to the police. But she did seek help from Women Against Rape. Along with listening to her story and suggesting ways she might begin to feel better about what had happened, the rape counselor who met with her told her she had the option of describing her assailant in the list, her deposition said.

Shirchild said the group recognizes that many women choose not to report a rape to authorities for a variety of reasons--the most common being that courtroom proceedings can be traumatic to the victim. According to an FBI study in 1977, only 15 out of 100 women report such incidents to authorities.

For those who do not report--or as a supplement to reporting--Women Against Rape hot line counselors used to suggest to callers that they consider including the rapist on a description list.

Shirchild said her group printed descriptions of alleged assailants only after establishing an ongoing relationship with the woman who called the hot line. She said they made sure that the caller’s story was consistent. Their counselors, trained to recognize rape trauma syndrome, attempted to determine if the victim’s reaction to the trauma was genuine, she said. “And we wouldn’t print something if it could describe half the male population.”

Exposing an attacker publicly, she added, can aid a victim in regaining a sense of control over her situation.

The description list is also intended to warn women in the community about potential assailants, she said. “We figure if women can have information about what’s going on it’s better than hearing rumors or hearing nothing.”

For eight years the description list apparently went uncontested. Now the case, originally set for trial in November, is scheduled to be heard in June.

‘A Vigilante Thing’

Carney, who is suing the group for $100,000 in emotional damages and $1 million in punitive damages, maintained: “It’s like a vigilante thing--they’re the Lone Ranger, and all of a sudden they started getting out of hand with it.”

Shirchild said, “We still have a good-faith belief in the information we printed. The lists were never printed lightly. Women did not just call up and say: ‘Here’s a description. Print it.’ ”

However, she added that the group has discontinued posting of the lists until such a time as they can work out a way to avoid future suits.

Santa Cruz police Detective Pat Reedy said that in her eight years with the department, the rape-crisis group has maintained a good working relationship with the police. “Often a victim will contact them prior to contacting us,” she said. “They usually present the police as one of the alternatives for a victim.”

And on occasions when a victim first goes to the police, Reedy added, the department sometimes calls in the organization to act as advocates for the victim.

Claire Kaplan of the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women said that, although her organization does not publish a description list, they are following the Santa Cruz case because “the whole anti-violence movement got started by guerrilla tactics and this is just one of them.”

Among the Options

Santa Cruz Women Against Rape has a reputation for offering victims of sexual assault choices that go beyond those provided by the legal system. For example, they say they will assist a victim in confronting her assailant in a public place, if she so chooses, with a group of women accompanying her for safety and emotional support. Confrontations, like description lists, are presented to hot line callers as an option.

Normally, Shirchild said, about 200 copies of the description list were distributed at gatherings and posted in places like women’s restrooms, bookstores and the YMCA and other locations frequented by women. “Our experience was when men saw the lists, they’d pull them down,” she said.

“The list is also a way of combating stereotypes about who rapists are,” she added, pointing out that Steve Carney’s description reads more like that of a boy scout than an alleged sex offender.

When Carney’s girlfriend telephoned him to say her father had seen his description posted at the Safeway, the store clerk was not totally surprised.

He said he had been aware for some time after that June night that the woman was still angry with him.

Several months after the evening at the turn-out, Carney received in the mail an old description list issued by Women Against Rape. According to court papers, Carney’s name had been added in fingernail polish and there was a note that said he’d be appearing in the next issue of the list.

“I didn’t even think about it,” he said. “I just threw it in a drawer. I figured it had to be from (the woman).”

After Carney filed his initial suit, and the woman filed her cross complaint, they settled out of court with an exchange of letters in March, 1986 and her name was removed from the ongoing suit.

Mutual Apologies

In the letters, Carney apologized for any “misunderstanding or hurt feelings,” and the woman apologized for her role in the publication of the description list. Both acknowledged that no sexual relations had taken place the evening of the incident.

In addition, the woman’s letter also states: “I was not raped by you . . . on the night described in the flyer, or at any time. . . .”

The letter was cited by Carney’s attorney in an interview as proof that the charges against his client are false. “People don’t apologize to people who attempted to rape them,” Sabih said.

But Stewart maintains that the wording of the letter does not deny her client’s original version of events. The woman states only that Carney and the other man did not rape her, she said.

“The letter doesn’t say that nothing ever happened,” Stewart added.

Explaining why the woman didn’t pursue the matter, Stewart said, “It’s fair to say my client simply wanted to put the matter behind her and go on with her life.”

Carney’s dispute with Women Against Rape continues. Since the anti-rape collective operates on an annual budget that it says is only $3,000 (for phone bills, printing costs, etc.) and owns nothing but a storage closet and a desk, the court battle is expected to be largely symbolic.

“I think they abuse their power by what they did,” Carney said. “Who gave them the right to do this?”

Shirchild maintains that the group has a right and an obligation to print such lists.

“Simply working within the criminal justice system will not stop violence against women,” she said. “The question is, do women have the right to protect themselves? Our answer is yes.”