Mary’s Ordeal : Woman Raped by Officer Sees Hope in Quest for Justice

It is a disturbingly familiar story: A woman accuses a man of rape, then feels that she is the one who is treated like a criminal.

For Mary Anna M., the ordeal had a twist. The man who raped her one night in 1981 was a Los Angeles police officer who had pulled her over on a traffic stop. Not only did detectives try to discourage her from pressing charges against one of the Police Department’s own, Mary says, but she was harassed by officers who patroled her home and once even cited her for violating a dog leash law.

But Mary pressed on. A year after he was accused of rape, former Police Sgt. Leigh B. Schroyer was convicted and later served, in the words of Mary’s attorney, “a measly 18 months” in state prison.

It is only now, Mary said Friday, that she feels her quest for justice will be fulfilled. “To say that I’m delighted is an understatement,” Mary said at a news conference about the California Supreme Court’s groundbreaking ruling Thursday that she could seek monetary damages from the city of Los Angeles for Schroyer’s actions.

How much money Mary may ultimately collect from the city remains unclear. The high court’s decision, while temporarily reinstating a $150,000 jury verdict for Mary, requires lower courts to review compensation, said Assistant City Atty. Thomas C. Hokinson.

Mary and her attorney, Vann H. Slatter, said at the news conference Friday that money was secondary to establishing that governments should be held responsible for criminal acts of law enforcement officers.

“I knew when I came forward and reported a rape by a uniformed police officer, it would not be easy. I came forward because I didn’t want anyone else to have to suffer as I did,” Mary said. Now a resident of Washington state, she allowed herself to be photographed, but declined to reveal her name, saying she was concerned for the privacy of her three children.

“My lawsuit,” she said, “. . . is to make sure the city puts into place procedures that would prevent this type of police misconduct from happening in the future.”

City attorneys had contended that, unlike cases in which damages are awarded for police brutality or wrongful shooting, a rape committed by a police officer was not “foreseeable” and so far afield from an officer’s duties that it should be beyond the city’s financial liability. They also argued the city should not be held responsible because Schroyer had violated police policy when he entered Mary’s home before raping her.

A Superior Court jury ruled in Mary’s favor. But the state Court of Appeal agreed with the city’s rationale.

Slatter argued that it was inconsistent for the courts to allow Mary to sue if she was beaten with a nightstick, but not if she was raped. “Frankly, the court was hung up on the sexuality of the crime,” he said.

The state Supreme Court agreed the city should be held liable. “When law enforcement officers abuse their authority by committing crimes against members of the community, they violate the public trust,” Justice Joyce L. Kennard said, writing for the majority in the 5-2 ruling.

Kennard further asserted that “the imposition of liability on public entities whose law enforcement officers commit sexual assaults while on duty would encourage the employers to take preventive measures.” The justices cited a San Francisco Police Department policy requiring male police officers to notify radio dispatchers of location, odometer readings and destination whenever transporting a female for whatever reason.

Paul Robert Kiesel, Mary’s co-counsel, said the Los Angeles police had a similar policy in 1981, but failed to enforce it.

Mary’s ordeal, as described in trial proceedings, began when Schroyer stopped her for suspicion of drunk driving and she failed a field sobriety test. When Mary began to cry, the officer decided to take her to her Northridge home instead of jail.

“I’ve done something for you,” Mary later recalled Schroyer as saying. “It is time for you to do something for me.”

He then dragged Mary by her hair to a sofa and raped her, she said, threatening to take her to jail if she resisted.

Mary said counselors at the Santa Monica Rape Crisis Center helped persuade her to press charges against Schroyer. The police sergeant, now reportedly living in another state, contended that Mary had consented to have sex with him.

Two police detectives “Mutt-and-Jeffed her” during an eight- to 10-hour “interrogation,” trying to shake her story, Slatter said. A police photographer, he said, took a picture of her wearing only her underwear without a female attendant present.

“They did everything they could to make me drop it,” Mary said. She recalled one detective telling her: “Do you know what happens to someone who perjures (herself)? You can go to jail for a long time.”

Mary was a single parent with two small children when the assault occurred. Traumatized by the rape, Mary later testified that she had developed a drinking problem, put on 75 pounds, lost her sex drive and needed psychiatric counseling. Mary said that after growing up “respecting and trusting police officers,” the sight of an officer today stills makes her nervous.

“You never forget anything like this. You live with it every day,” she said Friday.

During her decade in the legal system, she added, “I always felt I was a pawn on a chessboard.”

Her life, she said, has more recently turned for the better. Two years ago, a friendship with an old high school classmate blossomed into romance and a second marriage and a family that now includes a stepdaughter.

The last she heard of Schroyer, she said, he was living in Arizona.

“I hope he stays far away,” she said.