In Connecticut, though, the prosecution time limit for most rapes, in the absence of DNA evidence, remains five years, even though most other states have extended their statutes beyond that. Last month, the State Senate (which is split evenly between Republicans and Democrats) overwhelmingly passed a bill to abolish the prosecution window for most sexual-assault felonies and to update the state’s sexual-harassment laws, a win that one of the sponsors, Senator Mae Flexer, credited to the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements.

In the House, a supporter of Flexer’s effort, Representative Liz Linehan, stood on the floor and for the first time told all her colleagues how she was sexually assaulted years ago at a radio station where she was an on-air personality. Though she told her boss what happened, Linehan was the one who was eventually fired, while the assailant’s career continued to flourish. After she finished speaking on the House floor, she recalls, “Democrats and Republicans, friends and, honestly, foes, came up to me and said they hadn’t really known anyone who’d gone through this, and that I put a face on the problem, and they understood it now. I thought that meant they’d help me fight for the bill, and some did.” But the state’s Division of Public Defenders lobbied hard to fight it, and so did the chief state’s attorney, Kevin T. Kane, who argued that such a law would require prosecutors to search for elusive evidence for old claims, only to be unable to prove them beyond a reasonable doubt. As a result, Kane wrote in a letter to lawmakers, “many victims of assaults that occurred decades ago would get little more than false hope.” And so, in Connecticut’s Democrat-led House, the bill was never even brought up for a vote.

These days, Donna Palomba stays busy with her work at the nonprofit she started a decade ago, Jane Doe No More, which supports survivors of sexual violence and provides materials and presentations to Police Departments to sensitize emergency medical workers and press the police to investigate assaults fully. She and other survivors speak at high schools, colleges, businesses, civic meetings and community events to let others know they’re not alone, that the rape isn’t their fault and that receiving a post-rape forensic exam is critical.

The Palombas live in the home where they moved a year after the rape, to get away from the constant reminders of those painful times. Their children are grown now, and when John goes out of town, their daughter, Sarah, who lives nearby, invites Donna to stay over, so Donna doesn’t have to sleep in the house alone.

Last summer, as Regan was approaching the end of his 12-year sentence in New York, Donna was heartened that he would still spend three more years behind bars, this time in a Connecticut prison, which meant she could put off her worrying a while longer. But in August, Maureen Platt, who replaced John Connelly as the state’s attorney, called Donna and said she had terrible news: The Connecticut law in effect in 1993, when Regan assaulted her, provided felons “statutory good time,” a reduction in their sentence if they didn’t misbehave. As a result, Platt told Palomba, Regan was able to shave more than four years off his 15-year Connecticut sentence. That meant that in late October, when Regan completed his 12-year sentence for New York, he would be a free man. It would be as if he had never even been convicted of his crimes in Connecticut.

The news shook Palomba deeply. She was sure there had been some terrible mistake. Her attorney was blindsided as well. “What John Connelly told us would happen and what happened were two different things,” Maureen Norris Wilkas says. “He knew how very important it was to Donna that Regan do time for her crime, and John Connelly insisted that after Regan did his time in New York, he would come back and do three years here.”

Palomba was devastated. “I was incredibly upset and felt incredibly betrayed,” she says. “We’d all been told he was going to come to Connecticut to finish his sentence for those three years, and though I certainly wasn’t happy that it was so short, it was one of the few things I thought I could rely on, that wouldn’t change, that was under control.” The Palombas installed a surveillance system around the house.