Maryland Accident Law Blog
A 21-year-old woman who was raped by her stepfather as a teenager is suing Anne Arundel County for negligence, professional liability, false imprisonment, false arrest, and negligent supervision. She is seeking $1.2 million in personal injury damages for every act of sexual assault by her stepfather that took place between May 14, 2003 through April 23, 2004.
The woman says she first approached County police In 2003 when she was 15. She reported that Rogers was raping her, as well as videotaping and taking pictures of the sexual assault incidents. At around the same time, her step aunt approached the Department of Social Services to report that Rogers had molested her when she was a child. She expressed concern for her niece’s safety.
No one reportedly believed them until the girl’s mother Laura Ann Rogers found one of the videos and killed Rogers. By this time, the girl was seven month’s pregnant with Rogers’s baby.
The plaintiff is accusing the Anne Arundel County Police Department and Maryland’s Department of Social Services of not properly investigating the allegations that she and her aunt made. One police officer, Detective D.B. Long (who is one of the defendants named in the lawsuit and is still on the Anne Arundel County police force), arrested the girl for filing a false police report after Rogers made her recant her story. The authorities closed any investigation against Rogers and he continued to abuse the girl.
In 2004, Laura Ann Rogers pleaded guilty to manslaughter after she shot Rogers in the head with a gun while he was sleeping. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison, a sentence that was suspended except for the 198 days already served.
Apparently, the girl also contacted Bay St. Louis Police Department in 2000 to report that Rogers was molesting her. She says he has been sexually abusing her since she was 5.
Child rape saga now headed to civil court, HometownAnnapolis.com, August 31, 2008
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