'Nobody Believed Me': How Rape Cases Get Dropped; By Jan Ransom

While the Me Too movement led to greater awareness about the prevalence of rape, prosecutors in New York City still struggle to prove sexual assault accusations. In the Manhattan district attorney’s office, prosecutors dropped 49 percent of sexual assault cases in 2019 — among the highest rates in the city, and an increase from 37 percent in 2017. For cases that are not dropped, conviction rates for sexual assault cases are typically much lower than for other violent crimes. There aren’t really any third-party witnesses to these things,” said Carl Bornstein, a former state and federal prosecutor who teaches at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “This is tough sledding. The prosecutor has to assess: is this going to hold up under the scrutiny of 12 people?”