Syracuse University Fights to Block Rape Survivor’s Access to 1980s Police Files
In February, New York state court Judge Joseph Lamendola ruled in favor of Syracuse University, dramatically limiting the historical police records a former student can obtain for a lawsuit concerning a campus rape in 1987. The survivor, proceeding as Jane Doe under the Adult Survivors Act, is attempting to prove that the university failed to provide adequate security during a decade marked by rampant sexual violence on and around the campus. Rather than cooperating with requests for historical data, university attorneys intervened to restrict the subpoena issued to the Syracuse Police Department, claiming the geographic scope was overly burdensome.
Legal Pushback Over Decades-Old Archives
The legal battle centers on a subpoena filed last year by Andrew Stengel, a former Manhattan prosecutor representing Jane Doe. Stengel requested police calls and reports from 1982 to 1987 within the ZIP code encompassing the university, Thornden Park, and surrounding student housing. Initially, the Syracuse Police Department agreed to compile the files. However, university lawyers quickly filed a motion to partially quash the request, arguing it suffered from fatal geographic overreach.
Following the university’s intervention, the police department reversed its stance, estimating that gathering the documents would require 845 hours and $50,000 in staff time. Attorney John Powers, representing Syracuse University, emphasized to Judge Lamendola that city employees would have to manually search through boxes in dusty storerooms because the decades-old records were never digitized. Judge Lamendola ultimately ruled that the police must disclose only campus-specific crime reports while excluding offenses from Thornden Park and nearby student apartments.
Parallels to a History of Suppressing Scrutiny
The current legal skirmish echoes historical investigations into how Syracuse University handled institutional accountability during the 1980s. A previous ProPublica investigation into sexual assaults near the campus revealed that police reports from that era were occasionally marked “NO PRESS.” According to former detective testimony, this stamp indicated that university administration intervened to suppress media coverage of rapes, robberies, and burglaries in the surrounding area.
Sarah Scalese, Syracuse University’s vice president of communications, declined to comment on active litigation. However, she pointed to the university’s current robust support structures for survivors, including confidential counseling and advocacy services. Despite these modern assurances, legal representatives for the survivor argue that blocking access to historical records mirrors past tactics of minimizing the scope of sexual violence on campus.
The Appellate Fight and Alternative Liability Strategies
In June, appellate attorney Michael Steinberg filed a 37-page brief challenging Judge Lamendola’s ruling. The appeal argues that restricting disclosures strictly to university buildings ignores the reality of an urban campus interwoven with city streets. Furthermore, the brief objects to a provision allowing university personnel to act as gatekeepers who review the police files themselves, creating an inherent conflict of interest.
Simultaneously, university defense lawyers have pointed to Michael McKinney—a man on parole for a downtown parking lot attack at the time of Doe’s assault—as an alternative liable party. McKinney was linked by witness descriptions and police reports to the music building where Doe was attacked in February 1987, though he was never prosecuted for that specific crime. While McKinney was recently indicted for a separate, subsequent rape, university lawyers have moved to shift financial liability toward him in the civil complaint, a tactic legal experts describe as a standard maneuver to mitigate institutional exposure.
As the state appellate court weighs the merits of the document restrictions ahead of the university’s September 23 response deadline, the case continues to test the boundaries of the Adult Survivors Act and the legal mechanisms institutions use when confronting historical negligence.
