© AFP Photo / Spencer Platt
A New York police officer who brutally sodomized and inflicted oral sex upon a schoolteacher at gunpoint has not been convicted of rape, despite DNA evidence and witness testimonies about the violent attack.
New York's state law excludes nonconsensual oral and anal sex from the definition of "rape", calling them "sexual assault" instead, the
New York Daily News reports.
"New York lags behind such liberal bastions as South Dakota and Tennessee in how we define rape," said Assemblywoman Aravella Simolas, who last year introduced a bill that expanded the definition of "rape", which failed to get passed. "New York should be at the forefront to protect crime victims."
Lydia Cuomo, the 25-year-old schoolteacher who was victimized on the first day of her new job at a Bronx charter school, was sexually assaulted by off-duty police officer Michael Pena on Aug. 19, 2011. The cop asked her for directions to the subway at about 6:15 am, while she was waiting to be picked up by her principal.