Jane Doe No More (34 page)

“I don’t know, Maureen,” Donna said. “I have a bad feeling.”

I did not get a good feeling about him from the meeting. You get a gut feeling the first time you meet someone, and I did not sense that he was sincere in his interest to help. He had blown the meeting off a couple of times, and I only met with him out of courtesy to Maureen. I couldn’t believe what I was reading when the story later broke: the mayor had a relationship with a convicted prostitute who was helping him procure young girls for his pleasure?
This can’t be happening,
I thought. And he would entertain these young girls in his private office? I literally shuddered, my whole body trembling. I sat inside that office with him. Did he have sex with these children in the same office where we met? The thought made me sick, and I wondered what he was thinking when I was describing to him the details of my sexual assault.

CHAPTER
TWENTY
-
ONE

A Breakdown

The mayor’s office did not submit a complete offer on that Friday, September 22, as Maureen and Donna had requested. It wasn’t until the end of the day, 4:09 p.m., when the fax machine in Maureen’s office beeped and the city’s proposal scrolled out the bottom. Nothing like the last minute, Donna and Maureen reflected. Jury selection, after all, was set to begin on September 27, just five days away.

The fax was from Elena Palermo and Cheryl Hricko, corporate counsel for the City of Waterbury. The “Doe v. Moran, et als” concerning “Proposals and Regarding Police Proposals,” as the offer was now being called, appeared rather detailed in its entirety, yet when one looked at the minutiae, it was a bit more pomp and circumstance than the actual change that Donna had been advocating.

The city had proposed what it called “agreeable” terminology to quantify and assess Donna’s recommended policy and procedure changes. The term
agreeable,
according to the city’s proposal, “is to be interpreted as meaning that such procedure [of which Donna had recommended being initiated] is already in
use
at the Waterbury Police Department, or that we are willing to implement the concepts of the proposals into existing framework of procedures at the police department.”

Whitewash might have been a better way to articulate what was being proposed by the city. Its answer to Donna’s demands was nothing more than a transparent apparition of what Donna wanted, a way for the city to favorably appear as perhaps wanting to make changes. But when one studied the actual language, it was apparent that it was business as usual for the WPD, and nothing was ever going to get done the way Donna believed was essential.

The city’s wording within the offer was extremely vague and mysterious. The way Donna read it, the WPD wanted things both ways. Each policy and procedure Donna wanted implemented (Maureen and Donna had spelled out each demand in a corresponding document, numbering them one through thirteen) was considered “agreeable” in the eyes of the city.

Many of Donna’s notes in the margins of the city’s proposal illustrated her bewilderment: “What’s this mean?” and “How?” and “From where?” Counterproposal number nine, for example, read: “There are contractual provisions that apply to the internal procedures to review an officer’s conduct at the [WPD]. Such contractual provisions and labor issues would not be conducive to implementing this proposal.”

Donna wrote “BS” by what she viewed as an idiotic and confusing statement.

A damn insult.

The city’s counteroffer to Donna’s proposal number twelve, in which she requested that “The victim in this case should be given an acknowledgement that she was telling the truth and an apology,” was this gem: “. . .[I]n other Court case settlements, this would be considered a settlement of a disputed claim wherein the liability would not be admitted.”

Nobody was going to be held accountable?
Donna asked herself as she read. The city wanted to wash its hands of this case and not even admit its officers had done anything wrong?

Donna felt insulted and patronized. How dare they? This was unacceptable.

“No way,” Donna told Maureen.

Days later, it wasn’t one of those moves where the mayor wrote a figure down on a piece of paper and slid it silently across the desk for Maureen and Donna to look at, but it might as well have happened that way. They were notified via telephone that the city was working on a monetary offer. At some point Donna would be faced with a decision: Take the cash and walk away. Yet there was nothing in any of the city’s offers and counterproposals that spoke to Donna’s wish to see policies and procedures changed. The changes were a moot point to the city, apparently. The mayor’s office was talking about buying her out, and then walking away unscathed.

The city’s offer was muddled with legalese, and I had no confidence my demands would be met. I felt the city was trying to pull the bureaucratic wool over my eyes; trying to, in other words, get out of this without admitting any culpability whatsoever. This was offensive to me. I had been Jane Doe for seven years; it was time for me to come out and tell my own story and effect change! More and more people in our community began to figure out who I was and began to spread vicious rumors and make judgments about me. This case was slowly encompassing every aspect of my life all over again—it was never-ending. Even the WPD’s secretary, a woman my family had known forever, was being standoffish and cold to John and me. I was becoming overwhelmed by the process of being forced to hide behind this curtain and not speak about it publicly. I wanted the world to hear about the torment I had to endure at the hands of the WPD—and to me, lifting that curtain began with facing off in a court of law against those officers who accused me of lying.

On Monday, September 25, 2000, Maureen Norris called the city’s corporate attorneys’ office handling the case and told them that her client had made a decision.

“She’s going to trial. There will be no more negotiations.”

With that, Donna’s trial, which had been set to begin in days, was postponed to January 2001.

The following month, October, as the leaves burst into the East’s startling fall colors of orange and yellow and red, both good and bad news arrived from Dr. Henry Lee. As part of Donna and Maureen’s preparation for trial, Maureen had asked Lee to testify on Donna’s behalf. Lee’s testimony, they knew, would be invaluable. Lee wrote: “I am willing to supply expert opinion and testimony related to crime scene and forensic issues”; however, “. . . issues relating to police procedures and practices are beyond my area of expertise.” Lee said Maureen was going to have to find “another expert” to comment on those matters.

Lee could certainly testify about something having to do with crime scenes and how officers responded, having once said that the most important part (or moment) of any crime-scene investigation was when the first responders arrived and what they did. The patrol officers who showed up first, Lee had said, could make or break a case.

Weeks before her rescheduled trial, with Christmas approaching, Donna went in for a routine yearly examination with her gynecologist. Routine, Donna should have known by then, was not part of her life anymore.

After the exam Donna’s OB/GYN, sounding cautiously optimistic, said, “Not for nothing, but that lump feels like it has gotten bigger. I don’t think we should leave this alone. We need to do something about it.”

The lump that was supposed to have been nothing to be concerned about had grown since the end of summer. Donna’s doctor encouraged her not to waste any time. “Go in and see your breast doctor.”

Donna went immediately.

“I’ll get you right in to remove the lump and ease your mind,” he explained. “But it is nothing, Donna. I’m telling you.”

“I have a trial coming up. I cannot have any surprises right now, doctor.”

“I understand. Let’s get it out and you’ll see that it’s nothing.”

Hours later Donna went under a local anesthetic, and her doctor removed the lump. After the operation her doctor came back in to see her, reiterating, “I want to reconfirm for you, Donna, this is nothing.” He said he’d send a sample down to the lab for a biopsy to ease her mind and prove that it was a noncancerous growth. “I’ll call you tomorrow. I don’t want you to worry about this.”

Donna couldn’t sleep that night, which should have been an indication that her instincts were speaking to her.

The thought that the lump could be more than a cyst was frightening, and the first thing I did that night as I lay awake was ask God to help me. This was not the first time I had to deal with cancer. In January 1984 I went to the dermatologist for the very first time for a mark on my stomach that had a small halo around it. The young doctor said that it was nothing to be concerned with, but noticed a dark mole on the underside of my upper left arm. He asked how long it had been there, and I told him I didn’t recall, since it was in an area I could not really see. His face turned ashen, and he said I needed to get the mole removed that day and called a nurse in to assist. Within forty-eight hours after testing the mole, I was in for more surgery to excise the area further. It was melanoma.