Rape

Philippine prisons are better known for rats and vicious gangs than diplomatic niceties, which is why people here are angry that an American Marine convicted of rape is doing his jail time in the dignified U.S. Embassy. Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith was convicted in December 2006 of raping a 22-year-old Filipina a year earlier after they had been drinking in a bar in Subic Bay, a former U.S. naval base north of Manila.

Sometimes, it's the forbidden stories, the ones people are afraid to tell in full, the ones that emerge only in fragments, that reveal the truth about a place. This is such a story. It's being told now not because the complete truth is known, but because the story nags at those familiar with its outlines, and because it says as much about Iraq's progress as it does about Iraq's resistance to change.

Authorities said Thursday that four boys ages 9 to 14 took turns raping an 8-year-old girl for more than 10 minutes after luring her into a shed with chewing gum, and now her family has rejected her for bringing shame on them. "The father told the case worker and an officer in her presence that he didn't want her back," Phoenix Police Sgt. Andy Hill said. "He said, 'Take her, I don't want her.' " The victim is in the care of Child Protective Services, authorities said.

Two Santa Ana College football players and a male friend were charged with raping and sexually assaulting a drunk or unconscious woman last summer and videotaping the crime, Orange County prosecutors said Friday. John Paul Foster II, 22, of Seaside in Monterey County, and Michael Alexander Clemmons, 19, of Tustin were arrested and arraigned this week in the July 2008 assault. The third suspect, Luster Ditto Lewis, 20, of Irvine, turned himself in Friday and was arraigned.

Attorneys for three men convicted in Orange County 4 1/2 years ago of sexually assaulting an apparently unconscious 16-year-old girl while videotaping the incident asked a state appeals court Wednesday to toss out the convictions. Two of the attorneys said evidence excluded from the trial might have given jurors a different view of whether the defendants, all of them 17 when the assault occurred in 2002, had reason to believe the girl would have consented to the sexual acts. It also could have given jurors a different picture of the victim and her credibility, attorneys Dennis Fischer and Brett Harding Duxbury said.

For 34 years, the rape and murder of 80-year-old Alice Lewis remained a mystery. There wasn't even a suspect. But five months ago, a routine traffic stop in Los Angeles yielded DNA evidence that police said opened the door for solving the cold case and arresting the alleged killer. This week, Dennis Vasquez, 50, was arrested in the 1975 strangulation of the woman at her Meier Street home in Mar Vista. Because he would have been only 16 at the time of the crime, Vasquez appeared Friday in Juvenile Court in Inglewood.

The CIA has removed its station chief in Algeria from his post amid an investigation by the Justice Department of allegations that the officer drugged and raped two Algerian women, according to current and former U.S. government officials familiar with the matter. The officer, identified in an affidavit as Andrew Warren, served as the agency's top official in Algeria until late last year, and previously held high-level positions in Afghanistan and Egypt, officials said.

Phillip Garrido, who was convicted in a 1976 kidnapping and rape, was arrested four years earlier for allegedly drugging and raping a 14-year-old girl near his hometown, police in Antioch, Calif., revealed Thursday for the first time. Garrido was arrested last week on suspicion of kidnapping and raping Jaycee Lee Dugard, who was 11 when she was snatched from her street in South Lake Tahoe in 1991 and was allegedly kept in a hidden backyard warren of sheds and tents for 18 years.

Arline Mathews' age-spotted hands shake ever so slightly as she sorts through manila envelopes stuffed with police reports, letters and newspaper clippings, the chronicle of a quarter-century-old crime spree arrayed across her dining table. At 82, the portrait artist, community leader, mother and grandmother should be spending her time in leisurely pursuits, playing golf or bridge or having the kids over. Instead, Mathews' days are consumed by fear that the man who raped her 22 years ago could soon be released from prison and follow through on threats to kill her. The files in her dining room recount the battle she fought a generation ago to see Lloyd Anthony Roy punished for shattering her sense of security and her faith in the goodness of people.

On May 11, Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach told her officer in charge that she had been raped by a fellow Marine. The accused, Cpl. Cesar A. Laurean, denied it but was ordered to stay away from Lauterbach while the case was investigated. The two continued to work as personnel clerks at nearby Camp Lejeune but were sent to different buildings. Lauterbach, 20, became pregnant in May.