After 18 years, rape kit testing spurs charges

BELOIT - State prosecutors charged an imprisoned sex offender Thursday with sexually assaulting a teen more than a decade ago in the state's third criminal case arising from a massive effort to test old rape kits.

Jason Smith, 41, faces two counts of sexual assault of a child while armed with a dangerous weapon. If convicted, a judge could add 70 years to his existing 50-year prison sentence.

Court records say the new charges stem from a report by a 13-year-old girl to the Beloit Police Department on July 18, 2000. She said she had been raped in an alley by a black man with a gun.

The teen told detectives the man jumped her during a walk, displayed a revolver and threatened to kill her if she didn’t follow his demands. The man walked her to another location and twice raped her, according to the criminal complaint.

The teen said the man threatened to kill her if she called police. However, she contacted authorities the same day and underwent an invasive medical examination at a hospital to collect evidence for DNA testing.

That evidence — her rape kit — identified Smith in March this year through DNA matching, court records say. The kit specifically contained sperm with his DNA that had been collected from the teen's body 18 years earlier.

Beloit police officials declined to comment Thursday on how the teen’s rape kit had been handled. On the Beloit Police Department's Facebook page, Chief David Zibolski called the case "an extraordinary win for justice."

"While a criminal charge will not reverse the trauma caused by Smith, we hope this will help to bring continued healing and closure for his victims," Zibolski said.

Online court records show Smith was convicted in 2005 of two sexual assault charges that stemmed from incidents in October 2000 — or three months after the teen reported being raped in an alley.

Smith was sentenced in 2005 to 50 years in prison. He is now an inmate at the Waupun Correctional Institution.

Zibolski called Smith's victims "courageous individuals (who) brought this suspect to justice despite fearing for their lives. To us, they are brave heroes who helped remove a very dangerous man from our community before he could harm anyone else."

Online court records say Smith is scheduled to appear in court on June 28 in connection with the new charges.

Attorney General Brad Schimel, who runs the Wisconsin Department of Justice and has overseen the state's testing of old rape kits, announced the charges in a news release. The Department of Justice and the Beloit Police Department investigated the case.

The case marks the third prosecution resulting from Wisconsin's efforts to test thousands of old rape kits that were scattered in police stations and hospitals across the state and never sent to crime labs for DNA analysis.

Department of Justice prosecutors have previously filed sexual assault charges against Aaron Heiden, 29, of Eau Claire, and Leroy Whittenberger, 49, of Marion. State prosecutors say Heiden assaulted a 54-year-old Menasha woman in 2008 and Whittenberger assaulted a 17-year-old New London girl in 2012.

The woman and the girl both reported being sexually assaulted to police departments and consented to undergo invasive medical exams to collect evidence that could be tested for DNA. However, the rape kits produced from those exams were left idle until state authorities requested the evidence last year.

The new charges against Smith followed a USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin investigation this week that found police neglect was one of the reasons it took the state more than four years to send old kits to labs for DNA analysis.

State authorities first discovered more than 6,000 rape kits sitting, untested, in police stations and hospitals in 2014. However, they didn't begin testing the evidence in private labs hired to complete the work until January 2017.

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Some years-old rape kits were finally sent to labs last month and won't be finished with testing until the end of this year. Testing can take months as analysts attempt to extract DNA profiles from skin, saliva, clothing and other samples.

The Beloit Police Department denied requests from USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin in May to release records about the 2000 case involving the 13-year-old. The agency said at the time its investigation was "open and active."

In another case involving a years-old rape kit, the New London Police Department agreed to release records even after prosecutors filed sexual assault charges. The records revealed local prosecutors had twice refused to file charges against Whittenberger despite previous convictions for sexually assaulting teens.

RELATED: Prosecutors refused to charge sexual assault, even after rape kit DNA matched suspect

Beloit police agreed in May to release an inventory of their untested rape kits that had been shipped to state authorities in September 2016. However, that inventory contains no information for the rape kit that authorities now say contained Smith's DNA.

Beloit Capt. Dan Molland said in May that the rape kit was not listed since it was found in storage after September 2016. By that point, the inventory was already two months overdue for state deadlines. Beloit police later informed state authorities of the kit and it was tested.

Beloit’s inventory from September 2016 lists 59 rape kits collected from 2006 to 2015. More than half came from invasive medical exams of children. About half were also left untested due to prosecutor decisions, such as saying the kit wasn't needed to secure a conviction or prosecutors had declined to file charges.

Rock County District Attorney David O'Leary did not immediately respond to requests seeking information about cases involving Smith. An automated email reply said he was out of the office attending a state prosecutors' conference.

Current Department of Justice statistics indicate the Beloit Police Department found an additional 10 kits after the September 2016 inventory. Of the total 69 kits, state authorities plan to test at least 40. More could potentially be tested with victim consent.

Zibolski said Thursday that his department has improved its sexual assault investigations, its use of DNA evidence and training.

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