HBO special shows efforts of rape victim

Associated Press

WEST SAYVILLE, N.Y.

Natasha Alexenko wants more rapists in prison.

A sexual-assault survivor who waited 15 years to see her assailant brought to justice, Alexenko — who is featured in an upcoming HBO documentary on sex-crime prosecutions — insists authorities often have the evidence to convict predators, but it goes untested for years. It happened to her.

The Long Island woman is the founder of and spokeswoman for the new Natasha’s Justice Project, which seeks to advocate for rape victims and erase a nationwide backlog of untested sexual-assault kits, also known as rape kits. The backlog could be in the tens of thousands, according to some estimates.

“You’d be surprised how many people are not aware of the fact that an individual is sexually assaulted. We have the DNA evidence, and yet the kit sits on a shelf going absolutely nowhere,” said Alexenko, 38, who recently resigned as head of the Long Island Maritime Museum to support the foundation.

The documentary, “Sex Crimes Unit,” premieres June 20 on HBO. It focuses on the sex-crimes prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney’s office, often credited with pioneering aggressive techniques in convicting sexual predators, including clearing its backlog of 17,000 untested rape kits in New York City.

Although The Associated Press normally does not identify sexual-assault victims, Alexenko is willingly coming forward to lift the stigma associated with sex crimes.

Alexenko was a 19-year-old college student from Ontario when she was raped and sodomized at gunpoint in the hallway of her Manhattan apartment building in 1993. She immediately reported the assault to police and went to a hospital, where authorities collected physical evidence, including DNA samples.

But Alexenko’s rape kit sat on a shelf in an evidence room for nearly a decade. Only months before the 10-year statute of limitations was to expire, New York City prosecutors seeking to clear its backlog of rape kits had the evidence analyzed.

With no suspect in custody in Alexenko’s case, prosecutors employed an innovative legal strategy and indicted the DNA sample belonging to the unknown perpetrator, a so-called “John Doe indictment,” which essentially stopped the clock on the statute of limitations.

In 2007, authorities arrested a suspect who was eventually convicted in Alexenko’s sexual assault; he becomes eligible for parole in 2057. Alexenko, who testified at the trial, said afterward that she felt an obligation to help other victims.