D.A. Reopens Investigation of Reported Patient Rape : DNA: The decision is based on advances in identifying attackers by genetic fingerprinting. It follows a civil award made to the alleged victim.

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said Tuesday that it has reopened its investigation into the alleged rape of a female patient by a male nurse at Kaiser Permanente hospital in Woodland Hills three years ago.

The announcement was made after a civil arbitration panel last week awarded Deborah and Bruce Haywood $225,000 in damages stemming from the alleged attack in October, 1987.

The district attorney’s office said it decided to re-examine the case because of advances in DNA testing that make it possible to identify rapists based on the “genetic fingerprints” left behind in their semen or blood. In September, 1989, a Ventura woman became the first person in California to be convicted with the aid of genetic evidence when a jury found her guilty of stabbing a man to death.

However, a decision on whether to refile criminal charges against the nurse, Steven P. Coyle, has not been made, said Sandi Gibbons, district attorney spokeswoman.

Kaiser Permanente and Coyle have maintained from the beginning that no rape occurred.

The charges originally filed against Coyle were dropped because of lack of evidence, officials said. Unsuccessful in persuading police to conduct DNA tests on Coyle’s blood, the couple pursued its own investigation, only to be told the tests could not be performed because one semen sample was too small and the other had been improperly stored, said the couple’s attorney, Jerome Zamos.

The couple then paid nearly $20,000 for a second, less precise test known as a polymerized chain reaction. That test found only that Coyle had the gene type detected in the semen samples, according to the private lab that conducted the analysis. However, 7% of the white male population has that gene type, which Zamos said led to rejection of the findings.

Zamos said Tuesday that the results of polymerized chain reaction tests were recently introduced as evidence in a rape case in Riverside County and are being considered as evidence in other rape cases.

The Haywoods announced Monday that they intend to pursue a civil lawsuit against the hospital seeking $5 million to $6 million in damages.