Paramedic still seeks 'we're sorry' from Rawlins, ex-cop
TOM MORTON Star-Tribune staff writer | Posted: Saturday, November 8, 2008 12:00 am
The city of Rawlins and a former police officer won't apologize for or even acknowledge sexual assaults happened to a teenage girl in the mid-1990s.
Because the assaults never happened, they don't have to make any statements, attorneys for the city and Adam "Lee" Meacham wrote in response to Stephanie Faber's demand to satisfy a settlement agreement.
Last month, U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson agreed with Rawlins and Meacham.
Johnson also criticized Faber's attorney, Fred Harrison, for giving a press release about the settlement to the Casper Star-Tribune, which reported the city would acknowledge that sexual assaults occurred.
The settlement letter appeared to Johnson to be intentionally vague, according to a transcript of the Oct. 10 hearing in federal court in Cheyenne.
An acknowledgement of what happened wasn't clear, and there was no "apology language," either, Johnson said.
"Anything that the defendant would do at this point I just think exacerbates the very situation they're concerned with," he said. "As it stands now, that press release and the subsequent press releases represent the newspaper record of what occurred."
Harrison, Johnson said, could have told the Star-Tribune "no comment" about the matter.
All of which revictimized Faber, a paramedic in Iraq, she said in an interview from southern Iraq.
"I wanted someone to say, 'We're sorry,'" Faber said.
"It almost feels like they're laughing in your face, like, 'Ha, ha, we're better than you, kind of,'" she said. "It's like they wouldn't believe anybody would do anything like that."
The first assault occurred in 1996 when she was 15 and in Meacham's patrol car during a "ride-along" program set up by the Rawlins Police Department, and twice later at his house, according to court documents.
Faber coped with the assaults by closing her mind in what psychiatrists call "dissociative amnesia," which can be a component of post-traumatic stress disorder, her attorney said.
"That's how children cope with abuse," Harrison said. "They disassociate that memory in order to survive."
While on an ambulance call in Florida to care for a 4-year-old girl who had been raped, Faber's memories came back with a vengeance, leading to a suicide attempt. Her parents called an attorney who notified the Carbon County attorney.
After efforts to seek prosecution failed, in April 2007 she sued Meacham and Rawlins for covering up the events.
In June 2008, she reached a settlement agreement.
The settlement called for the city and Meacham to pay Faber $250,000, as well as a promise by the city to issue a formal statement, according to court documents.
That statement would acknowledge that a "preventable event or incident occurred involving Stephanie Faber and the Faber family that resulted in litigation; and further advising that the city of Rawlins has taken steps and will continue to take steps to avoid this type of event or occurrence happening again."
The city's attorney was to draft a proposed acknowledgement and submit it to Faber's attorneys, and they would be notified if it was to be presented at the Rawlins City Council, according to the settlement.
The money - drawn from government insurance pools - was paid late.
The city's statement never came.
"The city of Rawlins has not kept its promise," Harrison wrote on Aug. 25 in a motion asking the court to enforce the settlement. "It has not issued the promised public acknowledgement."
In responses filed in early September, attorneys for Rawlins and Meacham said Harrison's comments for a July 24 Casper Star-Tribune article violated the settlement in part because the headline stated, "city of Rawlins apologizes, will take steps to prevent future occurrences," wrote Wyoming Senior Assistant Attorney General Misha Westby.
Harrison responded that the settlement agreement did not include any language about requiring the attorneys to maintain confidentiality. He also referred Westby and Rawlins attorney Richard Rideout to call the Star-Tribune if they had problems with the article.
They never did.
Rideout declined to comment.
Rawlins City Manager Steve Golnar said he is new to the job, declined to comment, and referred questions to Rideout.
Meacham declined to comment.
Westby asserted Meacham did not commit the sexual assaults, and said the cash settlement was not unusual in civil rights lawsuits.
"The Defendants refused to admit the sexual assault had occurred but agreed to acknowledge that the ride-a-long program policy would be reviewed both to protect the ride-a-long passengers and the officers from potential false allegations. There was a very clear discussion and agreement that neither the City nor the officer would ever admit that the sexual assaults occurred," Westby wrote in a Sept. 8 motion.
Rideout agreed.
"The Defendant City wishes to reiterate that it has never admitted or acknowledged that the alleged assaults occurred nor has it 'apologized' for nor agreed to apologize for the alleged assaults," Rideout wrote.
"Not only would the Defendant City be in breach of this agreement by issuing any sort of admission or acknowledgement that the alleged assaults occurred, but it could subject itself to liability to the Defendant Meacham for making such a statement," Rideout wrote. "Under no circumstances did or would the Defendant City agree to undertake such a course of conduct."
These comments outraged Harrison and grieved Faber.
"Ms. Faber's conscience requires her to attempt by every means to keep children in Rawlins safe. She had hoped by reason of the settlement agreement that the City of Rawlins would join her in protecting Rawlins children and enter into a new era of healing for all involved," Harrison wrote on Sept. 26.
"Her hopes of cooperation with the City are destroyed by its response. The City of Rawlins, by its refusal to acknowledge the wrongs committed under its authority, refuses to examine the circumstances that allowed Ms. Faber to be a child brutalized by a police officer. Rawlins City government lacks the introspection necessary to either cure or heal itself. It is a sick city government. Rawlins officials stubbornly refuse to take steps to prevent it all from happening again," he wrote.
To Harrison, the city's behavior seems as if it wants the whole controversy to go away regardless of the effect on the citizens, he said.
"There can't be any confidence that our city government is responsive," he said.
Contact reporter Tom Morton at (307) 266-0592 or Tom.Morton@trib.com