Authorities Defend Mass Roundup : Critics Still Say True Victims Were Those Jailed, Not Girl

Almost four months after a 15-year-old girl claimed that she was raped by a group of illegal aliens, critics continue to express outrage that authorities have refused to exonerate the six former suspects. The accused spent up to two months in jail before charges were dropped June 30 for reasons that remain murky.

Pointedly, officials have never backed off from their initial assertion that a rape occurred, only acknowledging that they could not prove that the six suspects were guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt,” as the law requires. In refusing to elaborate, authorities have cited the girl’s right to privacy.

“Sometimes you have information that tends to be on the graphic side, and I don’t think there’s a public interest in laying it all out,” said Steven J. Casey, spokesman for San Diego County Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller.

“What about the rights of these six people and the others who were arrested?” responded Roberto Martinez, a co-chairman of the Coalition for Law & Justice, a watchdog group. “I think their rights should be respected just as much as the girl’s. This was a public case, with public raids, and they were publicly humiliated. Now, we think they should be publicly exonerated.”

Carol Muehling Frausto, the attorney who represented Jose Luis Romero, one of the six suspects, added: “What happened to them was an outrage. The whole thing got out of hand.”

Despite such comments, officials have defended their extensive investigation into the April 24 incident. About 80 Latinos were initially taken into custody--a fact defended by the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department as legitimate but derided by critics as a dragnet based on skin color. The intensity of the search was unrelated to the fact that the girl’s father is a longtime San Diego city police officer and her mother is a sheriff’s deputy, authorities have insisted.

In pressing charges, investigators essentially took the word of the girl about events that evening against the accounts given by the six suspects, all of whom denied that a rape or attack ever took place. Five of them acknowledged encountering the girl briefly on horseback that evening, but said the encounter was friendly and brief.

“She’s the victim in this situation, and she gave us very specific information,” explained Lt. Jerry Lipscomb of the sheriff’s station in Poway. “The physical exam by a qualified physician showed trauma, and who are we not to believe the victim of a traumatic incident? . . . We felt we had to take action.”

Critics see the action taken as precipitous, the six suspects as the true victims. Some view the case as the inexorable result of the increasing hostility being vented against migrants in northern San Diego County.

“The attitude is that, ‘You can do anything you want to these people, they’re not humans,’ ” said Jess Haro, chairman of the Chicano Federation of San Diego County. “It’s the continuation of a mind-set that has existed for a long time, that you have to have a scapegoat.”

Among those who disagree with that assessment is the girl’s father, who said in a brief telephone interview that he still believes his daughter was raped but concurred with authorities’ decision to drop charges.

“I’ve lived by the system for many years, and I can’t circumvent it, and I’ve got to believe in it,” said the father, who has been a San Diego police officer for more than 20 years, and is himself Mexican-American.