More Women Come Forward Amid UMBC, Baltimore County Cover-Up Allegations
BALTIMORE COUNTY, Md. (WJZ) — UMBC and Baltimore County are under fire from a federal lawsuit alleging leaders protected accused rapists and covered up crimes.
Hours after UMBC responded to these allegations that its police department and Baltimore County leaders intentionally mishandled rape cases, the lawsuit against the University and the county could be growing.
The lawyer handling the case said more women are coming forward to share their stories of sexual assault and what they say were botched investigations.
The stories have similarities.
Violent sexual assaults against college students, women who reported their attackers but never saw justice at trial.
The 56-page lawsuit aims to give the survivors their day in court.
"The idea is that people be held accountable for what they've done," said Rignal Baldwin V, an attorney.
Those people, the defendants, are not the accused rapists, but the UMBC and county leaders who Baldwin says protected them in a systematic cover-up of rape cases.
Which, the lawsuit says, was to lower the number of reports of sexual assault in Baltimore County.
"What we're talking about is just a number of unrelated women, who have been assaulted and then had the people who they trusted, betray them," Baldwin said.
He said the number of women represented in the class-action suit could be growing. For now, it centers on two cases.
In September 2015, the complaint said an 18-year-old tried to report a violent dorm rape. Instead, it says, UMBC police classified the case as a "suspicious circumstance," and because of that classification, the rape kit was destroyed one month after the crime.
Then, in October 2017, a Towson student reported to Baltimore County police, saying she had been repeatedly raped by three UMBC baseball players.
Court documents say they admitted to having sex with her while drunk, and told investigators, "they did not understand what the issue was,"
The lawsuit said the case was closed 24 hours later.
Monday night, UMBC students protested as the details of the alleged crimes became public.
Video from WJZ media partner, the Baltimore Sun shows them taking their demands to UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski, who listened and then apologized.
"We thought we were doing a good job. We've done a lot, but it clearly is not enough. Anytime I have this many of my students here who are feeling we need to do more, we need to do more," Hrabowski said.
The next step, attorneys said, will be to add new plaintiffs and new allegations to the lawsuit.
Baltimore County Police have declined to comment on this case.
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