The Pennsylvania attorney general’s office said in a response to a suit filed by a woman who was raped while working at a state prison: It’s pretty much your own fault.
The attorney general’s office also casts fault on the state, CNN reported.
The case involves a 24-year-old typist who worked at the Rockview state prison in Bellefonte. She was attacked in 2013 — choked unconscious and raped for 27 minutes — by inmate Omar Best, a criminal with three prior convictions for sex-related crimes, CNN reported. Best had also been transferred to the Bellefonte facility because he committed a felony assault on female prison worker at another facility.
“Despite this knowledge, defendants …. still allowed Omar Best to have unsupervised access to the offices of female employees,” the attorney general’s office wrote in the response to the woman’s suit, CNN reported.
The attorney general’s office also pointed out that the prison superintendent had moved the clerk office where the woman worked from its secure cell block to an unsecure location, and that the prison itself had been cited for safety violations.
But the woman’s lawyer said the attorney general’s office was launching a shameful defense, CNN reported.
“Worse than that, it’s an attempt to embarrass the victim,” said Clifford Rieders, an attorney from Williamsport, CNN said.
Still, the attorney general’s office said it was required to offer up all the defenses it could, and that the initial filing should not be regarded as the ultimate defense.
“This initial filing should not necessarily be interpreted as meaning this defense will be pursued throughout the entire case,” the office said in a statement, CNN reported.
Best received a life sentence for the woman’s rape.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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