Ex-prosecutor: Autistic girl was communicating in rape case

A former top Oakland County prosecutor today insisted that a severely autistic and mute girl, with the cognitive level of an 18-month-old, was indeed communicating when she typed allegations — with the help of a school aide — that her father had been raping her for years.

"Do I believe that some of those statements were reliable," attorney Deborah Carley testified in federal court in Ann Arbor this morning, in the second full day of a civil trial in a lawsuit brought by Julian and Thal Wendrow, formerly of West Bloomfield. "I think some of the things she told us were true."

Carley was second in command in the Oakland County Prosecutor's Office in December, 2007, when the Wendrows were charged with rape and abuse and thrown in jail. They were arrested based on the typed statements their then 14-year-old daughter made in a Walled Lake School classroom, using a widely debunked method called "Facilitated Communication," where a person guides the disabled person's hand on a keyboard.

The case fell apart and prosecutors dropped the charges in March 2008 when it as shown the child could not type coherent answers unless the "facilitator" heard the questions first, but not before Julian Wendrow spent more than 70 days in jail, and the girl and her brother, then 13, were sent to juvenile institutions.

The Wendrows filed a lawsuit against the former prosecutors, the County of Oakland, Walled Lake Schools, Michigan's Department of Human Services and West Bloomfield Police, alleging malicious prosecution, invasion of privacy and civil rights violations. All of the parties, except for three prosecutors and Oakland County, have settled with the family out of court for $3.7 million, although none has admitted wrongdoing.

In today's hearing, Carley, currently the division chief for children and youth services in the Michigan Attorney General's office, said she was unaware until several weeks into the case that "Facilitated Communication" was controversial and widely dismissed by researchers and mental health professionals. Study after study showed it was the "facilitator" who was actually communicating, although sometimes subconsciously, a Ouija board effect.

She said she was relying on information she received showing the Wendrows were fierce proponents of the method, and reports from the school that the child was working at grade level — with the facilitator guiding her hand on the key board. "The parents had endorsed this technique, they were forceful with the school about using it, they were giving it ringing endorsements, " she said.

But under sometimes terse cross examination by the Wendrows' attorney, Deborah Gordon, Carley admitted that a physical exam of the girl, within days of the allegations showed no signs of physical or sexual abuse, despite the prosecutors claims that Julian Wendrow had been raping her since age 6. The child's hymen was in tact. And Gordon accused Carley of lying to reporters when she said in a March, 2008 newspaper report that the reason the charges were being dropped was because the child was "too afraid to testify" and that ''medical testimony is not enough."

"There was no medical testimony, correct," Gordon asked.

"Correct," Carley said.

The trial, before U.S. District Judge John Corbett O'Meara, is expected to last a month. Gordon plans to call former assistant prosecutor Andrea Dean, who handled the case, and former Oakland County Prosecutor David Gorcyca.