During Sexual Assault Awareness Month, it is customary to recite statistics, which can't convey individual suffering.

That kind of pain is most palpable when one considers an individual case, like this: Just before noon on Oct. 18, 1995, a 15-year-old girl was walking home from school on a rural road near Nederland. Russell S. Rath, a Golden man who was then 50 years old, offered her a ride.

When they approached her home, Rath refused to stop, saying he needed to go to the store. Then, the victim testified, he took her to a secluded dirt road where he stopped his truck and told her he wanted to show her something in the woods.

After dragging her down a hillside, he raped her. Afterwards, he apologized, saying he wouldn't do that "next time." The victim walked home, vomited and showered. She found a $20 bill in her pant leg that was not there before the assault.

Rath was tried on charges of first-degree sexual assault and second-degree kidnapping. Besides the victim's testimony, prosecutors relied on testimony from relatives, police and hospital personnel, along with Rath's coworkers, to whom he had given contradictory accounts of the incident.

Prosecutors also presented testimony of four other women. Each said that Rath approached her on a public street, offered her a ride, took her to a secluded place, and attempted to assault her sexually. Two of those attempts were completed.

Each of those four other incidents happened during a 10-month period in 1981 and '82, and all of the other victims were between 12 and 20 years old. In three of those cases, the victim said Rath gave or offered her money. After each assault, Rath was conciliatory and acknowledged what he had just done, the victims testified. Rath was not prosecuted in any of those four prior cases.

In 1996, a jury found Rath guilty of both sexual assault and kidnapping. He was sentenced to concurrent terms of 16 years and eight years in prison. Rath appealed, and in 1999, the Colorado Court of Appeals threw out his conviction. The appeals court held that the testimony of two of the previous victims should not have been admitted because those incidents did not involve completed rapes.

Two weeks ago, the Colorado Supreme Court overturned the appeals court, ruling that the trial court was correct in admitting the testimony of all four women. Rath's conviction was reinstated.

The high court noted that the testimony of the other women helped to establish Rath's habitual, criminal scheme. The testimony also lent critical credence to the victim, whom Rath's attorney portrayed as a "pathological liar." The evidence helped keep him in prison, where he clearly belongs.

Though it is unique in its particulars, the Rath case underscores common truths. Few rape victims get a day in court, and fewer still see their attackers punished. Six and a half years after her rape, one victim has finally prevailed in court. Two decades after their attacks, four other victims see only a vicarious modicum of justice. Such tales, along with statistics, spawn a grim awareness of sexual assault.

Reach Clint Talbott at (303) 473-1367 or talbottc@thedailycamera.com.

April 23, 2002

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