Accuser's letters spill "secrets"
By Susan Greene
Denver Post Columnist
The letters are full of guilt and longing.
They're from a woman to the man she accused of rape.
"Your touch on me was always so tender and I could actually feel that you loved me," she wrote Spiro Vlassis after his arrest in 2001 for sex assault.
"I'm sorry I brought any hurt into your life and I'd like you to forgive me for all the sorrow caused. Please," reads a note after he was convicted.
"Each time I think of you my heart breaks a little more thinking about my part, my decisions, my actions and my secrets."
These hardly seem like the words of a rape victim to a man who assaulted her. Especially given that the woman, who was carrying Vlassis' child at the time of the alleged attacks, was angry because he had gotten another woman pregnant.
"The charges he was found guilty of are not accurate," she wrote months after he was sentenced to 50 years to life.
Despite problems with the credibility of their main witness, district attorneys are fighting Vlassis' bid for a new trial. Hearings reopen this week.
A judge will consider the testimonies of two public defenders who say their own performance at trial was deficient.
Vlassis' trial judge denied him a chance to present his alibi, including key witnesses and timecards from his job. Former Judge John P. Leopold (now retired) also failed to disclose that he had met privately in his chambers with Vlassis' girlfriend before the date of the alleged attack. He not only refused to recuse himself from the case, but went so far as to issue a court order saying that he would refuse to speak about what some see as an ethics breach.
Other doubts are raised by:
• Nude photos of herself that the victim sent Vlassis days after his guilty verdict.
• Intimate letters about how her anatomy had changed after giving birth to their son.
• The fact that she admitted twice under oath that, at the time of the arrest, she was distraught about the baby he was having with another woman.
• And the 80 letters she sent him in prison, including 49 sent after his conviction.
"I think you're the sweetest soul that was ever made," she told him days after he was sentenced. "I don't remember (expletive), you know how my brain works."
Prosecutors no doubt will gloss over these facts by arguing that she was traumatized. DA Carol Chambers' office wouldn't comment Friday and no doubt will accuse me of blaming the victim — whom The Post is not naming because of its policy of not identifying victims of sexual assault.
"This case is every man's worst nightmare," says Vlassis's lawyer, Gail Johnson. "You're innocent. You go to trial. And then you find out the jury won't hear powerful evidence showing your girlfriend is lying."
Vlassis, 32, from Aurora, has spent eight years behind bars. His "victim" is raising their son. She's in a new relationship, out of touch with Vlassis. She says she hopes he isn't granted a new trial because "it's easier," for the sake of her "new life," that she never again see him.
Still, remorse oozes from a woman who seems to have used the justice system as a sword rather than a shield.
"I'm responsible for sending someone to spend their life in prison," she told me Friday. "There's a certain amount of guilt I feel about that."
In 2003, she mailed Vlassis a photo of their boy. The note on the back haunts me.
"He has a beetle in his hand. Once he picks one up, he has a really hard time letting it go. Sometimes I think he has to kill it just so he won't have to let go," she wrote of the son Vlassis has never met.
"Sound like anyone else you know?"
It ends with a smiley face.
Jezz....what a psycho!!! Kinda feel bad for the guy. Anyways here's our fantastic picture. We look so tacky. In famous words of Kenny Powers..."Who wears all white? fags and drug dealers!" Classy!
No comments:
Post a Comment