November 9, 2024

This Week on Reveal: From Victim to Suspect

A young mom reports a sexual assault to police—but that doesn’t solve her problem. It creates a new one.

Illustration of oversized men in law enforcement uniforms peering down at a small woman, who is talking.

Molly Mendoza for Reveal

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Nicole Chase was a young mom with a six-year-old daughter to support when she was sexually assaulted by her boss while working at a Canton, Connecticut restaurant. When she decided to report the attack, she knew she was risking a lot—her livelihood, for one, but also the reputation she’d build in her small, close-knit town.

What happened next went beyond even her worst fears. Her case triggered a legal battle that dragged on for years, eventually reaching the US Supreme Court. Rather than treating her as a victim of sexual assault, the police investigated Chase and charged her with making a false statement to the police. “This man has caused me to lose so much money that I had to move out of my place,” Chase says. “I went to a doctor, I had to get put on more medicine for my PTSD and my anxiety attacks and all that. My whole life has been flipped upside down.” 

Chase wasn’t alone. In this week’s episode, which originally aired in March 2023, Reveal reporter Rachel de Leon investigates the disturbing trend of interrogating victims instead of alleged perpetrators. Listen to the whole episode at Reveal, and watch Victim/Suspect, a documentary about the investigation, on Netflix.

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Take the next step: Help us fight for the truth.

Investigative journalism, like the story you just read, takes time to do. Months of research. Weeks of writing, editing, and fact checking—and putting together the photography, art, video, and audio that tell the stories in a new way, illuminating new perspectives and voices

We can afford to take that time because we don’t report to an oligarch or corporation with a special agenda. We report to you, and for you. That’s why we unabashedly pursue the truth and relentlessly shine a light into the darkness.

In this month’s Summer Membership Drive, we’ve got to raise $200,000 to support more crucial investigations. This is a pivotal moment in our nation, with democracy on the line, and we can only do this work because readers like you step up. Every donation, of any amount, makes a difference here. We cannot do this work without you.

So, we’re asking: Will you support independent journalism that demands those in power answer for their actions?

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