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Media Coverage of some cases ATA staff have worked on:
For full text of article go to Fishtown Murders
THERESA CONROY conroyt The exotic dancer who accused two former Philadelphia police officers of raping her in their patrol car has given defense attorneys ammunition that could chip away at her credibility in court. Last month, the 26-year-old Northeast woman was arrested in Upper Southampton Township, Bucks County, and charged with theft from vending machines. She faces a preliminary hearing there next month. And just two weeks ago, the woman filed a lawsuit against former officers James Fallon and Timothy Carre and the City of Philadelphia - a move she had claimed to have no interest in pursuing. "She's looking for money in all the wrong places," said C.P. Mirarchi III, Carre's attorney. When asked if he would try to impeach the woman's credibility in court by using her attempt to collect compensatory and punitive damages for the rape, Mirarchi responded: "The lawsuit? I'm going to have T-shirts made up with it." During a preliminary hearing for Fallon and Carre in January, the alleged rape victim appeared in court with a civil attorney, whom she said she needed because she no longer trusted the police. "When I asked her if she intended to file a suit, she said, 'I would never do something like that. I'm not looking for money, I'm looking for justice,'" Mirarchi recalled. "I'm wondering why she filed now. Why didn't she wait, she had two years?" he said. Tom Klein, the woman's civil attorney, said legal issues made it important to file the suit at this time. Klein said there were also "valid considerations" that had to do with the ongoing criminal investigation and prosecution of the rape case that led him to file the civil suit now. He declined to list the reasons. "I think it's important for us to file our claim - which we thought was appropriate to file at the time that we filed it - and let the criminal process take its course," Klein said. "And we intend to, along a parallel course, proceed with the prosecution of the civil claim and we want to be very certain that we are cautious and deliberate as we go along in this case. It's important when there is both a criminal and a civil case pending." The lawsuit alleges that on Dec. 11, Fallon and Carre sexually assaulted and raped the woman in their patrol car, while on duty. The suit says the woman suffered physical, psychological and psychiatric injuries. Some of those injuries are permanent, the suit charges. The suit also accuses the city of Philadelphia of being "vicariously liable for the assaultive, negligent, reckless, intentional, wrongful and unlawful conduct of Officers Fallon and Carre." Christopher Mallios, chief of the District Attorney's Family Violence and Sexual Assault Unit and the prosecutor on the case, said yesterday the suit did not pose a conflict or cast any shadow over the criminal case against the officers. "This gives a defense attorney additional arguments to make at trial, but any sexual assault victim has the right to vindicate her rights in the civil court as well as the criminal court," Mallios said. "It's a right any citizen can have." Mallios said jurors "can see through" such defense tactics. Mallios declined to comment on the woman's pending suburban criminal case. The woman was arrested with two men after 4:30 a.m. June 23 after a witness reported that two men were breaking into a Pepsi machine in a parking lot on County Line Road, according to a police report. The two men took off in a red car, the witness told cops. Upper Southampton police stopped the car outside a funeral home, the police report said. The woman was in the back passenger seat, sitting next to a white plastic bag containing a large amount of change and bills, according to the report. Police also recovered a large wad of one-dollar bills from her back pocket, the report said. She was held in $10,000 bail. "There is no allegation that she broke into the machine," said Bruce Franzel, the woman's defense attorney. "She was in the car asleep. She had no idea that they had stopped and were doing that. She had no idea that anything was going on. The witness says there are only two males." The rape case against Fallon and Carre is to begin Nov. 13.
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