Blog

The girl, Harris told the jury in her closing statement, was the “perfect victim” for the men to go after. Would a girl who was healthy and secure enter that apartment, thinking that the men in there would “talk her through her problems at the group home” across the street? No, she would not.

“Are you to believe that [she] went through this entire process of testifying, of being cross-examined in that manner, of being physically examined, because she’s just making it up because she wants to manipulate?” Harris asked the jury. “Is she that complex? No.”

“She is that vulnerable. And they knew it, and they raped her.”

The jury believed the girl on the most important question. They found the two men guilty of rape. Evans was sentenced to 18 years in prison and Lee to 14 years. When the victim heard the verdict, she “melted in front of us,” according to O’Malley.

“Nobody ever stood up for her,” O’Malley said. “No one ever spoke for her. … Kamala made her feel like she was the only important person in her life. She focused on her. She empowered her.” (Years later, O’Malley reconnected with the young woman, who she said turned her life around. She was married with kids and was “very happy.”)

O’Malley remembers that Harris showed her prosecutorial mettle even before she got the verdict against Evans and Lee. Harris came to her boss in the middle of the case and told O’Malley, “There’s something up here.”

“It turns out that the group home director was actually a pimp, and he was pimping out these girls that were assigned to the home — and they were being gang raped,” O’Malley said. “And so we prosecuted him, too. So that was the kind of case where she was very thorough, very smart, very presentable.”

Read the entire article by clicking HERE