Posted on 08/15/2003 5:32:20 AM PDT by Iagreetonothing
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- When Gerald Bennett, a convicted sex offender, tried to surrender to police on a bench warrant, they let him go on his way. Six days later, he killed a woman and raped a 13-year-old girl.
In a strongly worded opinion, a federal judge has ruled that even though Glenolden police and Delaware County Prison officials bungled in checking the warrant, that wasn't reason enough to allow the victims' relatives to sue the officials.
U.S. District Judge Stewart Dalzell dismissed a lawsuit against then-Glenolden Police Chief Edward Cooke and other officials, although he said the victims ''endured unspeakable horrors in part because of some defendants' lassitude and incompetence.''
Relatives of Roxanne Leidy and the 13-year-old girl who was raped will appeal Dalzell's ruling to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Philip A. Yampolsky, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said Thursday.
''It's a horrendous set of facts,'' Yampolsky said.
Cooke didn't immediately return a voice mail message seeking comment. Robert P. DiDomenicis, an attorney for Cooke and Glenolden Borough, didn't immediately return a call seeking comment.
Cooke had maintained in 1999 that police didn't do anything improper, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer, saying ''It's very easy in hindsight to say if he had been in custody, then the murder wouldn't have happened.''
GLENOLDEN, Pa. (AP) — A man tried to surrender on a parole violation days before he strangled a woman and raped a 13-year-old girl, but was turned away because of an error, police said.Gerald Bennett, 30, walked into the police station in Glenolden on Aug. 26 and said he wanted to surrender, Police Chief Edward Cooke said.
He was arrested hours after the Sept. 1 killing of Roxanne Carol Leidy and rape of the teenager. Cooke said an officer called a national crime database and verified that a bench warrant had been issued but was unable to confirm the warrant with Delaware County prison officials and told Bennett to go home.
A constable who was called to take Bennett to prison confirmed the warrant with prison officials a few minutes later, but when he arrived at the police station, Bennett was gone. “This is absolutely devastating,” said Leidy’s brother, Christopher Miller. “How could they just let him go?”
Court records show a bench warrant was issued for Bennett on July 21 at the request of his probation officer. He had failed to showup for meetings with the officer and for sex-offender treatment classes that were conditions of his probation on a 1997 rape conviction.
Cooke said Bennett did not offer any specific reason for turninghimself in. “He was just very business-like,” Cooke said Thursday.“He just came in because the probation officer urged him to surrender.”
Patrick L. Meehan, Delaware County district attorney, attributed confusion over the warrant to “miscommunication at the prison end.” Still, he wanted to know why Bennett was let go at a time when anactive warrant was out for his arrest. “This was a problem that should not have occurred,” he said. “Where was the breakdown? And how can the system be changed so that this doesn’t happen again?”
Prison Board Chairman Charles P. Sexton Jr. said the prison would investigate and report to Meehan. He declined further comment. Cooke defended his officers, saying they followed proper procedures and, under the circumstances, couldn’t have acted differently.
“It’s very easy in hindsight to say, if he had been in custody, then the murder wouldn’t have happened,” Cooke said. “If we all had acrystal ball, how easy police work would be.”
our judicial system lets rapists and child molesters out with out even a struggle....
But we have plenty of police and judges to prosecute people that don't wear their seat belts though, now don't we....
I am roxanne's neice and amandas cousin kathryn miller I think that you should of held the police responsable for not arresting Bennet when he came to them and told them to lock him up but they didn't and look what he did he murdered my Aunt and rapped my cousin that is really messed up that they are not responsable for any of this.
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