Despite a withering cross examination at the hands of defense attorneys, a south suburban woman insisted today that she was sexually assaulted by a former deputy police chief in his Markham office. But the woman's testimony was shaky at times, and the officer's lawyers argued that her alleged behavior was not consistent with that of a woman who had been raped.
Former Markham Deputy Chief Anthony Debois pleaded guilty to a single count of lying to the FBI. But while he says he did have sex with women in his office, he insisted none of them were in police custody.
In this case, the woman said she had been picked up with a friend who was accused of counterfeiting. After about a half hour in police custody, she said she was taken by another officer to Debois' office, where he forced her to engage in oral sex, then raped her.
But during cross examination by defense lawyer Terry Ekl, the woman admitted she had exchanged phone numbers with Debois, and that the two of them sent and received over 100 text messages, starting the very evening of the alleged assault. She also admitted logging into her Facebook page within minutes of purported attack to show photos to other officers, and that she lied about her contacts with Debois to the FBI and a federal grand jury.
She even conceded she "may have" visited Debois at the police station a few days after the attack.
"If you've been raped by a man, do you have that kind of communication with him?" Ekl asked.
Prosecutor April Perry argued the woman had no motivation to make up a sexual assault, and that another officer corroborated her story.
Judge Joan Lefkow took the case under advisement, saying she will levy a sentence at a hearing in early April. In the meantime, Ekl suggested after court, that the government doesn't believe its own case.
"There's no playbook for how a victim of crime acts, I'll acknowledge that," he said. "But there are certain things that victims of crimes, particularly sex crimes don't do. And they don't do what this woman did."
