A mistrial was declared Tuesday after an alleged sexual assault victim testified that Skokie police urged her to go forward with prosecution of the case because the defendant, a former Evanston police officer, ”raped other women.”
The lawyer for former officer John Leonard objected to the woman`s remark, calling it ”a lie,” and asked the judge to declare a mistrial on the first day of the jury trial in the Skokie branch of Cook County Circuit Court. Judge Joseph Romano granted the attorney`s motion, saying he saw no way he could ”cure” any prejudice created by the woman`s testimony.
It`s unclear what the next step in the case will be. Prosecutors said they want a retrial, but Leonard`s attorney said he may fight that.
Leonard, a resident of Deerfield, was charged with aggravated criminal sexual assault, kidnapping, unlawful restraint and impersonating a police officer. He resigned from the Evanston force in 1985.
The woman`s remark came after nearly 2 1/2 hours of often withering cross-examination by defense attorney Patrick Tuite, who sought to undermine her testimony that Leonard sexually assaulted her in June 1990, after leading her to believe that he was an off-duty Evanston patrol officer.
The night of June 7 started as a fun evening as the woman listened to jazz with two friends at a Chicago club. After dropping them off, she headed north through Evanston.
But she was stopped for a traffic violation and was found to be driving on a suspended driver`s license.
After she was released about 3 a.m., Evanston police said she could spend the rest of the early morning in the police station but that she was prohibited from driving.
Instead, the woman asked to be taken to an all-night Burger King, but she left there after being harassed by a group of youths.
She started walking to her car along Chicago Avenue when, she testified, Leonard stopped his car, showed her a badge and identified himself as an off- duty cop.
”He offered a ride. I hesitated. He pursued,” she testified under questioning by Assistant State`s Atty. Jonathan Lerner. In the car, they talked and he questioned her about boyfriends, she testified.
”By the time I got to my car I wanted to get out,” she said. But he wouldn`t leave, she said.
Over her initial objections, she agreed to drive her car home followed by Leonard, who would use his police badge to get her out of any possible trouble on the way.
But after they saw a Skokie police car, he persuaded her to get into his car and he drove to a parking lot where he asked her to kiss him. ”I said no,” she testified.
It got rougher as he put his hands around her neck, ordered her into the back seat and pulled off her clothes, she said..
”I told him not to kill me,” she testified.
Tuite sought to show that the sex was consensual and that the woman must have had doubts that Leonard was a police officer.
Asked why she got into his car after they saw the Skokie squad car, the woman said she figured Leonard just did not want to explain that he was helping her.
”A total stranger” violating the law for her sake, Tuite said, scoffingly, ”out of the goodness of his heart?”
Tuite also questioned why it took her some two hours to report the incident.
Then Tuite began to question her about a civil suit another lawyer has filed against Leonard and Evanston.
”You`re looking to make some money off this,” Tuite asserted.
Next came the testimony about allegations of other charges against Leonard.
Tuite said his client has no prior criminal record. Lerner said that her answer was ”unexpected” and that his office said nothing about other alleged offenses.
A Skokie police spokesman, Officer Michael Ruth, said the agency had no comment.
Outside court, Lerner said his office knew of an allegation in Lake County but that there was neither an arrest nor a court proceeding.
The civil suit also contained an allegation, and Lerner said Tuite had a copy of that suit as he questioned her.
