Does Baltimore County Prosecutor Scott Shellenberger Take Sexual Assault Seriously?
Last month, a Baltimore County judge allowed Anthony Westerman, a former Baltimore County police officer, convicted of rape to serve his sentence at home instead of in prison. The sentence immediately caused an uproar. Only a police officer could be convicted of sexually assaulting multiple women and still manage to avoid a prison sentence.
There’s a lot of finger pointing going around for this head-scratching sentence, and certainly most of the responsibility for the sentence is on the judge who ultimately imposed it. But in a recent community forum between candidates for Baltimore County District Attorney--Scott Shellenberger, the incumbent; and Robbie Leonard, the challenger--Leonard also pointed the finger at Shellenberger, blaming him for the outcome in the Anthony Westerman case and accusing Shellenberger of not taking sexual assault seriously.
So, does Scott Shellenberger take sexual assault seriously?
Baltimore County Watch has done a deep dive into Shellenberger’s recent record on prosecuting sexual assault cases. Here are three data points to suggest that Shellenberger does not, in fact, take sexual assault cases seriously:
Shellenberger Promoted A Culture of Labeling Rape Allegations As “Unfounded”.
A Baltimore County, Maryland woman woke up one evening to find a man “on top of her penetrating her vagina with his penis without protection.” The woman said, according a Baltimore patrol officer’s report describing the sex assault, that she told the man “asked the suspect to stop and tried to clench her legs closed unsuccessfully.”
The man would later send the woman a text asking her if she had been raped in the past because “people who have are very sexual and wet like you.” The man had been arrested for rape in the past and just a year later would be accused of rape again.
But when the woman reported the rape to the Baltimore County police, they closed the case within hours saying the case was “unfounded,” because the victim did not use, in their view, adequate physical force to stop the man. An investigative report from BuzzFeed News found that Baltimore County law enforcement routinely “closed” rape cases like this one without even investigating them in situations where the victim did not “resist to the best of her ability.”
Shellenberger agreed with the police, saying that since “no force was used” the case was “extremely difficult to successfully prosecute.” He later doubled down when The Baltimore Sun asked him to explain himself, saying that he reviewed this case and others like it and “they do not amount to a crime under Maryland law.” A criminal law professor at Baltimore Law School called Shellenberger’s view “a misinterpretation” of the law.
Shellenberger Refused To Prosecute College Athletes Accused of Perpetrating A Gang Rape
One night in 2017, two female college freshmen met members of the college baseball team at a bar. Later in the evening, while the young women were so intoxicated that they were blacking out, the women told the police that the three men took turns raping them.
The men admitted to having sex, but said what the women described as a “gang rape” was consensual.
Shellenberger refused to prosecute the case. The women then took the case to a district court commissioner, who filed charges. Shellenberger took exception, and was involved personally in getting the charges dropped and his office went out of their way to expunge the arrest records of the baseball players.
A 2018 lawsuit filed by a group of women, including the two victims, and naming Scott Shellenberger, among others, as a defendant stated that:
In Baltimore County, there is systematic, institutionalized indifference to crimes of
sexual violence, coupled with bias against women. Women represent the overwhelming majority of the victims of sexual assault. Defendants treat victims with indifference and disrespect, intimidating female victims, frequently downplaying to victims and the public the seriousness of sexual violence, discouraging women from reporting sexual assault or seeking justice, holding women to outdated stereotypes, and minimizing or excusing the culpability of the men who commit sexual assault.
Defendants' biases and abuse of civil rights have eroded public trust in the criminal justice system and have placed women in Baltimore County at an increased risk of sexual assault. Defendants have intentionally made sexual assaults committed in Baltimore County nearly impossible to prove and prosecute, to the detriment of women who live in or visit Baltimore County.
The lawsuit goes on the argue that:
For years, Defendants have deprived female victims of sexual assault in Baltimore County of equal access to justice and of equal protection under the law. Defendants conducted punitive investigations of victims while ignoring evidence implicating assailants. As part of a pattern and practice of intimidation, Defendants charged victims with making false reports, retaliated against victims' families, and humiliated victims, all in order to lower the reported numbers of sexual assaults. Defendants' conduct is influenced by and results from their personal biases, indifference to sexual violence against women, and a failure to train or supervise those who are supposed to be protecting Baltimore County residents.
Shellenberger opposed a law that would require that all new rape kits be tested and barring the destruction of old rape kits for 20 years.
A 2019 Baltimore Sun investigation found that Baltimore County police from 2010 to 2015 had destroyed 521 rape kits, more than twice as many as the 231 that they had previously reported. Police had no explanation for the discrepancy.
The Police Department’s policy was to destroy kits “in which the victim is not cooperating, when detectives have concluded the case does not meet the legal standard for rape, or when prosecutors decline to prosecute,” the Sun reported.
The Maryland legislature passed a law in 2017 that barred destruction of rape kits for 20 years; and, in 2019, passed a law requiring that all new rape kits be tested.
One might imagine that Baltimore County’s top law enforcement official would support a law designed to collect evidence against people who commit serious violent crimes. Instead, Shellenberger wrote legislators urging them NOT to adopt a requirement that all rape kits be tested.
Yes, that’s right: Baltimore County’s top prosecutor lobbied against a requirement to collect evidence that could be used to prosecute people who commit rapes.
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Saying that it’s not a rape unless the attacker uses sufficient physical force; refusing to prosecute baseball players alleged to have gang raped two college freshman; fighting against testing rape kits--this is Scott Shellenberger’s legacy.
Anthony Westerman, a police officer, receiving far more lenient treatment than virtually anyone else convicted of rape, is simply another example in a long line of examples of Shellenberger failing to take sexual assault seriously.
