Prosecutor promises change in county with Pa.’s lowest rate of prosecuting sex crimes

Shortly after he was sworn in, Gavin Holihan concluded that his office needed to improve its investigation of sex crimes. But Lehigh County’s new district attorney didn’t realize how far behind the state was.

Lehigh County ranked last in a PennLive data analysis examining which Pennsylvania county prosecuted the fewest sex crimes reported to police over the past five years. When sex crime charges were compared to population and number of police reports filed, the county ranked 67th out of 67 counties.

Holihan said the study confirmed what voters had already told him.

“We had to work on that,” Holihan said.

Before taking over as district attorney in January, Holihan said he received an unspecified number of requests from police and victims to reopen cases that had not yet been initiated. He said he reopened some of them.

He didn’t say how many, but said he didn’t see any trends or themes in the requests. But there was enough for him to take the necessary measures to improve the prosecution of sexual crimes.

“Have people asked our office to re-evaluate cases? Has there been dissatisfaction with decisions made in the past? The honest answer is ‘Yes,'” Holihan said.

The Lehigh Valley Crime Victims Council is pleased that Holihan is taking these cases seriously, said Lois Keller, the organization’s executive director. Sexual assault cases are difficult to prosecute, even when handled well by investigators. They have an emotional impact on victims who sometimes wait years for a court outcome that does not go their way.

“Many of our clients did not receive the types of justice they expected to receive,” said Sara Ullmer, who oversees volunteers, crisis advocacy and special events for the nonprofit.

Holihan took over in January from former Lehigh County District Attorney James Martin, who is not running for re-election. Martin took office in 1998 and was the longest-serving district attorney in the county’s history. A message sent by a spokesman for the county district attorney’s office seeking comment from Martin was not responded to.

Over the past five years, Lehigh County police recorded an average of 452 sexual crime reports per year from 2019 to 2023, according to PennLive research. Lehigh County prosecuted about 33 sex crimes per year during that five-year period, according to data from the Pennsylvania Administrative Office of Courts.

This means that only 7 percent of sexual crimes reported to police during that period resulted in criminal charges, and even fewer resulted in arrest and conviction. This ranked last in Pennsylvania. That makes Lehigh one of four counties that prosecute less than 10% of reported sex crimes, PennLive found.

“No matter what the numbers are, this is not good,” Holihan said.

“We knew it was something that needed to be addressed, something that needed to be addressed quickly,” he said.

The new chief of prosecutions, Patricia Fuentes Mulqueen, brings decades of experience and a proactive approach to handling cases involving special victims.

He said he is trying to get assistant district attorneys assigned to cases more quickly than before.

Assistants can assist with police investigations or work with witnesses to prepare them to testify at preliminary hearings, he said.

“I think this is really helpful for victims and prosecutors,” he said.

Sara Moyer started this year as chief of the district attorney’s special victims unit. Sarah Heimbach is a new prosecutor working under Moyer. Detective Tom Galloway retired from the Bethlehem Police Department and currently works as a special victim investigator in Holihan’s office. Each has extensive business experience and each brings a fresh perspective to their roles, Holihan said.

The special victims unit does not only prosecute sex offenders, but all sexual crimes fall within this unit’s caseload. Since there is no unit or prosecutor dedicated solely to sexual crimes, it is difficult to say how much manpower is devoted to these cases. Serious cases require assistance from investigators and prosecutors outside the unit, Holihan said.

“In some cases, everything is at hand,” Holihan said.

Holihan added a manager to the county lab who analyzes data from cell phones and other electronic devices. The manager handles paperwork and tasks that previously fell to a single investigator, giving the investigator more time to retrieve vital information from cell phones and computers.

Getting that data as quickly as possible would make a big difference, he said. Information from the electronics is cross-referenced with data obtained through the county’s intelligence and investigation center.

For example, a telephone number found on a mobile phone at the forensic electronics laboratory may turn up in the police information database at the regional intelligence center, which may lead to further leads.

Rethinking the old ways

Holihan is part of the team that is reshaping the John Van Brakle Child Advocacy Center, an important resource for social workers and law enforcement to investigate suspected child abuse. This includes sexual abuse of children.

Debra Esernio-Jenssen was fired as medical director of the advocacy center last year. More than a dozen families sued himHe said they were falsely accused of child abuse.

Lehigh Valley Health Network, Lehigh County government officials and Holihan are working together to establish a new child advocacy center in downtown Allentown.

“Part of the goal is to make this prosecution-focused rather than hospital-centric,” Holihan said.

Holihan thinks new staff and new approaches will help improve his office’s performance.

“We looked at everything and made a lot of significant changes for special victims,” he said.

“I appreciate DA Hollihan’s commitment to making improvements for survivors,” said Lori Sywensky, executive director of Turning Point of Lehigh Valley. The organization supports victims of domestic violence and works closely with the Lehigh Valley Crime Victims Council.

Keller, the council manager, said she discussed her concerns about sexual assault cases with Holihan shortly after taking office.

“He is approachable and listens,” Keller said.

However, they disagree with some of Keller’s suggestions. He thinks investigators interviewed too few emergency room nurses to support their cases. Staff, St. She spoke with nurses at St. Luke’s and Lehigh Valley Health Network, and anecdotal evidence suggests that few of them were called to testify after administering rape kits. This makes him wonder whether researchers took appropriate action after these tests were administered.

Holihan said it was extremely rare for a nurse to be called to testify about the collection of evidence from a rape kit. Rather, this call may come from a defense attorney who wants to discredit the victim. And most defense attorneys do not want to inflame the jury’s emotions by testifying about something so offensive and traumatic for the victim.

Keller said his organization can offer some help and a fresh perspective on deadlocked investigations.

While I was working at a child advocacy center in Philadelphia, the police department invited victim advocates to review all of their files on sexual assault cases. The lawyers agreed that all information would be kept confidential. They encountered samples where rape kit tests came from laboratories but the police could not trace them. They found flaws in police methods of interviewing victims, which led to trauma-informed training for police.

The review led police to reopen 681 rape cases and 1,141 sexual assault cases. According to the Women’s Law Project. The Philadelphia Case Investigation Model has been adopted by police departments in the U.S. and Canada, Keller said.

If it worked in Philadelphia, it could work in the Lehigh Valley, he said. “I would love to see more counties do this,” Keller said.

Holihan is skeptical.

“The idea of ​​opening case files to a victim advocacy organization would present many legal challenges that could bias the investigation,” he said in an email.

Holihan acknowledged that the PennLive statistics revealed a serious shortcoming, but said his office had already suspected it needed to improve those investigations and was taking steps to address it.

“I wasn’t aware of the numbers until you brought it to my attention,” Holihan admitted. “That’s something I don’t think any office would be proud of.”