BEND, Ore. (AP) — A lawsuit alleges Deschutes County prosecutors couldn’t file charges in an alleged rape because either the hospital or the Bend Police Department lost blood and urine samples that would have been evidence of a crime.
The lawsuit filed this week asks for more than $1.6 million in damages against St. Charles Bend and the police and comes on the heels of another $6 million lawsuit against the alleged assailant — who was not charged in the case — and the organizers and venue of a party where the woman says the assault unfolded, The Bulletin reported Wednesday.
The plaintiff was at a 2015 Halloween party with her husband and some friends when someone slipped an unidentified date rape drug into her drink, according to the lawsuit.
She then became separated from her husband for about 30 minutes and was sexually assaulted by a man who had been hired to help with event security, the court papers say.
The alleged attacker later told police that he had sex with the plaintiff, but it was consensual and she did not seem overly intoxicated, according to the suit.
On Nov. 1, 2015, the plaintiff contacted Bend Police to report the alleged sexual assault. An officer met with the plaintiff and her husband and suggested she go to St. Charles Bend for a sexual assault examination, according to the lawsuit.
Another officer picked up some of these samples that night, according to the lawsuit, but the police department later told the plaintiff it never took possession of the samples.
The samples were never sent to a crime laboratory for testing. Deschutes County District Attorney John Hummel decided not to file any criminal charges against her alleged assailant in part because he had no way to prove she was incapacitated and therefore unable to consent.
Hummel did not immediately return a voicemail left Wednesday by The Associated Press.
St. Charles employees took blood and urine samples and told the plaintiff some of these samples would be tested by the medical center to help with her care and others would be used by police as evidence in the sexual assault investigation, according to the lawsuit.
Bend City Attorney Mary Winters says the case will be handled by the city’s insurance company.
A spokeswoman for St. Charles Bend declined to comment to The Bulletin.
