The McKean County District Attorney’s Office will review all
sexual assault cases that involved an Erie nurse whose findings
have been discovered to be inconsistent with other evidence,
exaggerated or false.
District Attorney Ray Learn said a thorough review of a
“handful” of sexual assault cases that Sexual Assault Nurse
Examiner (SANE) Rhonda Henderson worked on will now be necessary
since the former employee of St. Vincent Health Center in Erie was
found to have skewed justice in several in Erie County cases.
When asked how far-reaching the effects of Henderson’s faulty
work would be, Learn said it was still unknown but that he was
optimistic.
“We don’t know, but we don’t expect a huge impact,” Learn said.
“We only used her in a couple of cases. I can’t quantify it until
we’ve completed our review.”
He said that the main priority was to conduct a thorough review
in order to maintain the integrity of justice in the county, and
that after a determination is made victims, defense attorneys
and/or defendants will be notified regarding any inconsistencies in
cases in which they are affected.
“We will be reviewing the cases to determine what other evidence
was present in addition to whatever Henderson testified to,” Learn
explained. “We’re going to be very thorough and make sure there are
no problems right now. We’re trying to make sure justice is served
and that no one is wrongly accused.”
He said it was too early to say whether any court cases would
need to be retried, and did not yet know the severity of the sexual
assault cases the rulings of which may now be put into
question.
Learn’s office notified McKean County Children and Youth
Services this week to make them aware of the situation, since CYS
has also utilized Henderson in the past to have children examined
which they believed were subject to sexual abuse, according to
Learn.
Learn indicated that his office would be taking extra caution
and implementing a double-checking strategy with future cases.
“We are currently looking for other established experts
throughout the scientific community and will have them review
current and pending cases,” Learn said. “They will be put through a
vetting process to make sure they are qualified experts.”
Experts first began to cast serious doubt on Henderson’s work
back on April 1, when expert Mary Carrasco found that her
examinations did not match the photos she took of a victim’s body,
according to an article in the Erie Times News.
The article stated that Carrasco, who is the head of a facility
that assess suspected child abuse victims at Mercy Health Center in
Pittsburgh, then informed Erie County District Attorney Jack Daneri
about the inconsistencies.
Daneri said that his office identified 11 pending assault cases
in Erie County that involved Henderson’s findings and examinations
and sent them to two nationally recognized experts in the field of
child abuse medical examination for further assessment, the article
stated.
In the article, the experts were said to have determined that in
all 11 cases Henderson identified injuries that were not present on
their bodies or overstated evidence to corroborate them, or simply
submitted erroneous findings.
