A celebrity television judge accused MARTA Tuesday of despicably “blaming the victim” in refusing to settle a lawsuit alleging a para-transit driver raped a mentally and physically disabled woman.
The driver of the bus admitted to having sex with his then 21-year-old passenger in 2011, said television Judge Glenda Hatchett who said Tuesday she had joined the three-year-old case as a lawyer and advocate. The transit authority contends it isn’t responsible for the driver and disputed that it was a forcible rape, Hatchett said.
“To say this is consensual, to say this is outside the scope of his employment is outrageous,” Hatchett said. “There is no question that the rape happened.”
MARTA spokesman Lyle Harris declined to comment, citing pending litigation.
But Hatchett, a former chief judge of the Fulton juvenile court, had little explanation about why the case wasn’t prosecuted criminally other than the woman’s parents didn’t want to put her through a criminal trial. Her co-counsels Thomas Cuffie and Harold Spence, who filed the civil case in 2013 were equally mum.
District Attorney Paul Howard, who has a unit dedicated to imprisoning sex offenders, told The Atlanta Journal- Constitution Tuesday his office declined to prosecute the case because after an extensive investigation ” we concluded no crime had occurred” and closed the case in February 2012.
That August, the Fulton solicitor office filed a case of misdemeanor sexual battery against the driver, which was later dismissed, according to court records.
“We are not parties to the lawsuit and do not wish to provide the appearance of support to either side,” Howard said. “Most importantly, we feel it is inappropriate for this office to make statements about the alleged victim in this matter—statements which may appear to criticize or disparage the character of this woman.”
Hatchett said that the woman was easily manipulated and contended her mental disability was so acute as to make legal consent impossible.
The alleged sexual assault happened on Sept. 23, 2011 after when the woman was the last passenger on the MARTA Mobility bus she boarded at Emory Egleston Hospital in Atlanta, the lawsuit contends. When the bus reached the woman’s neighborhood, the bus driver, Xavier Winfrey, turned off the ignition, which disabled the surveillance camera and raped and sodomized the woman, the lawyers said.
Winfrey, of Stone Mountain, then dropped her off at home, the lawyer said. The woman’s family reported the attack to MARTA Police the next day, according to a police report. The case is now filed in DeKalb County State Court for civil litigation.
Attempts to reach Winfrey, who is no longer employed by MARTA, or his lawyers in the criminal cases were unsuccessful.
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