By PAMELA GOULD
Stafford attorney Denise Rafferty provided effective counsel to a former Aquia Harbour teen whose victim recanted her rape allegation after his conviction, according to the state Attorney General's Office.
The office's response is part of a motion to dismiss a petition by the boy's attorneys, who are seeking to clear his name and get him off the state sex offender registry. The response was filed in Stafford County Circuit Court this week.
The teen served about 17 months in a Department of Juvenile Justice facility after pleading guilty to rape and breaking and entering charges in Stafford Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court in 2007.
Though he maintained his son's innocence, Edgar Dulaney agreed to have the boy accept a plea agreement to ensure he didn't risk winding up in an adult prison.
The prosecution had sought to try him as an adult.
About two weeks after the boy's commitment to the Department of Juvenile Justice was confirmed, the alleged victim told her mother she hadn't been raped and he hadn't broken into their home.
Since then, the girl's mother has sought to rectify what she considers to be an injustice.
The girl was 14 at the time of the June 2007 incident; the boy was 15. Both lived in Aquia Harbour at the time.
As part of the petition, the boy's attorneys claim Rafferty violated his constitutional right to effective counsel.
Specifically, they claim she failed to investigate the claims against her client, failed to interview him, failed to investigate his and his accuser's backgrounds, misrepresented the evidence against him and ignored an eyewitness. Their petition included affidavits from school officials stating the girl previously made false accusations.
The boy is represented by a team of attorneys, including Deirdre Enright, director of the Innocence Project at the University of Virginia law school, and Andrew K. Block, legal director of JustChildren, a program of the Legal Aid Justice Center in Charlottesville.
This week, Assistant Attorney General Gregory W. Franklin filed a motion to dismiss the petition on grounds that the juvenile justice department no longer has custody of the boy, the petition wasn't properly filed and that Rafferty provided effective counsel.
The motion included a nine-page affidavit from Rafferty, laying out steps she said she took as court-appointed counsel for the teen.
She said she spoke with her client one-on-one in an attorney room in the Stafford courthouse prior to a hearing on July 19, 2007, and that he told her he had sexual relations with the girl after pushing her down on a bed.
"He told me he did not want his parents to know what he had done," Rafferty wrote.
Franklin argued in his motion that that information explains Rafferty's actions.
"Counsel had no basis to think that the victim's account was false because her client essentially confirmed its truth," he said in his motion.
Rafferty also states that she spoke to Dulaney by phone and three times spoke to the case detective.
Further, the alleged victim's account relayed by Detective Gerald Lloyd and Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Gail Perkins was consistent with the charges and the boy's comments, Franklin claims.
The prosecution proceeded on the grounds that the girl did not have the mental capacity to consent to sexual intercourse, but the boy's attorneys contend the pair were intellectual peers.
No date has been set for a hearing in the case, but last month, the boy's attorneys filed a motion for discovery.
They are seeking to take depositions from Rafferty, Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Eric Olsen, who prosecuted the case, Detective Lloyd, Aquia Harbour police, two Stafford sheriff's deputies and two social workers.
Pamela Gould: 540/735-1972
Email: pgould@freelancestar.com