(COLUMBUS, Ohio)— Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine announced today that his office will receive a grant of $1,998,300 from the New York County District Attorney's Office.
The grant funds, awarded by New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr., will be used to test a number of kits submitted to the Attorney General's Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) as part of Attorney General DeWine's Sexual Assault Kit Testing Initiative, which launched in 2011.
"Ohio is a leader in the nation when it comes to addressing the issue of untested rape kits. These funds will allow us to continue to quickly and effectively test many of the remaining kits and return any DNA hit information to local law enforcement to help them bring attackers who have previously avoided prosecution to justice," said Attorney General DeWine. "I am grateful to the New York County District Attorney's Office for their assistance in helping us reach our goal of testing each and every previously untested rape kit in this state."
As of September 1, 2015, 198 law enforcement agencies have submitted 10,764 kits to be tested as part of the Ohio Attorney General's Sexual Assault Kit Testing Initiative. Forensic scientists with BCI have tested 8,416 of those kits, resulting in 3,121 hits in the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS).
In Cuyahoga County alone, 370 defendants have been indicted so far following DNA testing conducted as part of the Ohio Attorney General's Sexual Assault Kit Testing Initiative and follow-up investigations conducted by Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty's Cuyahoga County Sexual Assault Kit Task Force.
“Mike DeWine made everything we are doing possible with his recognition that these kits are a gold mine of information for law enforcement," said Prosecutor McGinty. "This is an opportunity we dare not waste, and we thank him for his leadership and his vision.”
Attorney General DeWine launched the Ohio Attorney General's Sexual Assault Kit Testing Initiative in 2011 after learning that dozens of law enforcement agencies across the state were in possession of rape kits, some of which were decades old, that had never been sent to a DNA lab for testing. Attorney General DeWine then made an open call to law enforcement to send their kits to BCI for DNA testing at no cost to them.
To ensure the timely analysis of the thousands of kits submitted as part of the initiative, Attorney General DeWine hired 10 additional forensic scientists. By hiring this additional staff, the older kits are tested as quickly as possible, without slowing down the testing of the more than 8,280 rape kits associated with recent crimes tested by BCI as part of their regular casework since 2011.
Senate Bill 316, which went into effect on March 23, 2015, now requires Ohio law enforcement agencies to submit any remaining previously untested sexual assault kits associated with a past crime to a crime laboratory within one year. The law also requires that all newly collected rape kits be submitted to a crime lab within 30 days after law enforcement determines a crime has been committed.
More information on the grants provided by the New York District Attorney's Office, which were awarded to 32 jurisdictions in 20 states, can be found here.
Media Contacts:
Dan Tierney: 614-466-3840
Jill Del Greco: 614-466-3840