http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/14251697p-15068008c.html Victim recants; lawyer wants conviction set aside
Thirteen years ago a Sacramento Superior Court jury wrongly convicted a former National Guard military police officer of sexual assault, according to the victim. In a rare hearing ordered by a state appeals court, the woman this week recanted what she originally told law enforcement in 1991 and later a jury. "I wasn't hurt or forced," the 36-year-old woman said of an alleged Aug. 4, 1991 abduction by Eric Charles Knapp. Knapp, who was also convicted in the same trial of raping another woman the previous year, was sentenced to 98 years in prison for the two attacks. During two hours of testimony Tuesday, the woman said she lied because she had a drinking problem at the time and liked the attention she was receiving. She accused investigators of embellishing details of her attack and said she thought she was helping officers lock up a serial rapist. "I said these things to get attention and for people to feel sorry for me," the woman testified. Marilee Marshall of Los Angeles, who is representing Knapp, is attempting to convince a judge that her client's conviction should be set aside because the sexual assault contaminated the rape case. The sexual assault alone carries a 12-year sentence. Judge Cheryl Chun Meegan, who presided over the one-day hearing, is expected to rule after June 26 when attorneys will submit arguments in writing. According to the woman's testimony in 1993, she was working for a pizza parlor hanging advertisements on doors when Knapp stopped her while she was discarding a bunch of fliers in a dumpster. Knapp told her he worked for the same company and was going to report her. She got in his car and tried to talk him out of reporting her. But Knapp grabbed her and sexually assaulted her, the woman testified in 1993. The other victim, who was 24 at the time of the attack, testified during the trial in 1993 that Knapp stalked her for about two weeks before breaking into her Citrus Heights home. Neighbors of the victim wrote down the license plate number of a suspicious car that later was matched to Knapp's car. Knapp testified in trial that he met the 24-year-old woman earlier that night and that she was attracted to him because she had sexual fantasies involving military police officers.
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