An initiative spearheaded by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office to test backlogged rape kits across the US has already yielded 186 arrests and 64 convictions — including a serial rapist in Arizona who impersonated a “Family Ties” actor to lure his victims, officials announced Tuesday.
Using $38 million in forfeiture money to fund the effort, the Manhattan DA has cleared a backlog of roughly 55,000 untested rape kits since the program launched in 2015.
“Testing every rape kit is our best practice and moral imperative – both to ensure survivors receive the support and action they deserve, and to ensure that these backlogs never happen again,” Vance said in a statement Tuesday.
Rape kits are collections of evidence gathered at hospitals or rape crisis centers after a claim of sexual assault.
DNA evidence included in rape kits is considered a critical tool for nabbing suspects and exonerating the wrongly accused.
In one case, Arizona law enforcement officials submitted 1,400 untested rape kits to be vetted through the Manhattan DA’s initiative.
Three of the kits in that batch were matched to suspected sex offender Nathan Loebe, who was eventually convicted of sex assault, kidnapping, and stalking raps.
Authorities had discovered that for years Loebe had impersonated “Family Ties” actor Brian Bonsall to assault women he met through online dating sites.
Spanning 20 states, the program has developed more than 18,000 new DNA profiles of potential rapists that have now been uploaded to a federal database.
An additional 165 rape prosecutions have been launched due to the campaign, officials said.
“With our $38 million investment, we have begun to rectify what has been a tragic failure of government and law enforcement at all levels – a decades-long, systematic denial of equal rights for women in the justice system,” Vance said.
Officials were optimistic that the new catalog of DNA profiles will gradually result in a fresh wave investigations and convictions across the nation.
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