Sexual assault investigator vacancies mean victims must travel out of county for exams.

It’s a worst case scenario for victims of sexual assault in Monterey County: Already traumatized by the assault, the victim must travel themselves or be ferried by a car service over one hour to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose – usually in the middle of the night – in order to collect the vital evidence necessary to bring the perpetrator to justice. “It’s horrific,” says Monterey County District Attorney Jeannine Pacioni. “It’s problematic on so many levels.”

It’s also better than nothing, which is the situation Monterey County faced after March 19, when the coordinator of the county’s Sexual Assault Response Team, Sheree Goldman, retired. She had already pushed back her retirement date by a few months while the county scrambled to find a replacement. Meanwhile, during the pandemic the county lost any investigators working under her to attrition, meaning no trained forensic investigators on call to examine victims at the two local hospitals where a special exam room existed, Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula and Natividad.

Pacioni, who founded the county’s SART in 1998, says difficulty retaining forensic investigators predates the pandemic. The program relied on registered nurses who have gone through specialized training to identify, collect and record evidence that will later be used in court. The program not only ensured an accurate exam and evidence collection, it also took victims accompanied by law enforcement out of the public view into private exam rooms.

“It was a win-win in treating victims in a respectful way, and as a tool of getting evidence to corroborate” their witness testimony, Pacioni says.

The examiners were on call and paid a per diem that was never “robust,” Pacioni says, which meant most had other jobs. Late night cases that last into the early morning hours were problematic with day jobs. Recruiting and retaining skilled investigators became even more challenging during the pandemic since nurses were in high demand.

When Goldman left in March, the county was forced to contract out the job of forensic exams to Santa Clara County’s medical center, which is not ideal but necessary, says Pacioni. “I assure you a trained forensic medical examiner is worth their weight in gold,” she says, adding that an unskilled examiner can undermine a case. A Monterey County Sheriff’s Deputy must drive to San Jose to pick up and return the rape kit.

The Monterey County Rape Crisis Center answers the SART line and helps victims get immediate medical attention before coordinating travel up to San Jose, according to RCC Executive Director Lauren DaSilva, who is acting as the defacto county SART coordinator. If the victim doesn’t have a way to get there, she calls a car service. DaSilva says the Valley Medical investigators are highly skilled and says victims receive excellent care. There are approximately 162 rapes annually, with less than 125 of those victims consenting to SART exams, according to Pacioni.

To fill the gap that now exists, county officials have been in talks with a local medical group to train personnel and take over the forensic exams permanently on a contract basis. On April 5, Health Department Director Elsa Jimenez requested from the Board of Supervisors an additional $250,000 in the 2022-23 budget to pay for the contract.