Student Rises Above Rape Case

Her name is Carrie Eaton.

That’s an important place to start. Eaton’s willingness to use her real name tells a lot about how far this courageous young woman has come.

Nobody would blame Eaton if she decided to hide.

The Eastern Washington University senior was raped not once, but twice: First, allegedly by a fellow student. Then by the Spokane County prosecutors who bungled her case before it went to trial.

As an inconsiderate bonus, Prosecutor Jim Sweetser’s office left this victim in the dark for over two years.

She was never told that all efforts to get rape charges reinstated against the suspect were shot down by the state Court of Appeals and the Washington state Supreme Court.

Not a happy revelation in an election year, Jim.

Here’s how Eaton found out that justice will never come to her: I told her over the telephone the other day after looking up her file at the courthouse.

Yet, Eaton has somehow been able to rise above every terrible circumstance. She declared her major in social work and spent last summer working in a Seattle rape crisis center. Eaton will speak later this month at the annual Seattle Rape Relief Breakfast.

Helping other rape victims has become her life’s mission.

Eaton was one of the main organizers of EWU’s recent Sexual Assault Awareness Week. On Friday, she took the stage inside the Pence Union Building and spoke of her own personal pain.

“Not a single day goes by that it’s not present in the back of my mind,” said the 21-year-old, weeping as she faced a small audience. “But the Carrie I am today is stronger.”

The world she knew changed on Oct. 14, 1995.

Only a month into her freshman year, Eaton says she was raped in a Morrison Hall dorm room by Tony Ledenko, a football player she barely knew.

Even though drinking had been involved, it looked like a slam dunk for prosecutors, who charged Ledenko with second-degree rape.

Two witnesses swore in affidavits they saw Eaton trying to resist Ledenko’s sexual advances.

The report filed by EWU police is chilling. It states that Eaton was seen running naked down a hall to escape. “She was pursued by Mr. Ledenko and caught, restrained and carried back to the room where the rape continued,” the document adds.

A trial was scheduled for Jan. 22, 1996. It was the same time then-deputy prosecutor Carol Davis was to be out of town on a work junket. Davis left, thinking she had a verbal agreement from Ledenko’s lawyer to waive his client’s right to a speedy trial. The attorney, Mark Vovos, said no such deal was made.

No matter who is right, it was up to Davis to file the proper paperwork. She didn’t.

Superior Court Judge James Murphy had no choice. He threw out Ledenko’s case. “I don’t even remember walking out of the courtroom,” said Eaton of her reaction. “It was devastating.”

Prosecutor Sweetser makes no excuses for what happened.

“I have to take responsibility,” he says. But he adds that his “heart is in the right place” when it comes to advocating victims’ rights.

Sweetser says he took corrective measures with Davis. Apparently so. Since leaving the prosecutor’s office, Davis has been stumping for Sweetser’s opponent, Steve Tucker.

Sweetser says he tightened up the system to keep such an “egregious violation” from happening again. He points out that he tried to pursue Ledenko through appeals, but came out on the losing end at every turn.

As for not notifying Eaton about developments in her case, the prosecutor doesn’t have as good an answer. He claims he didn’t have her address.

“That’s such a lame excuse,” exclaims Eaton’s mother, Molly McNichols. “This may be the worst part of all of it. It’s like regurgitating a bad meal.”