ST. LOUIS – A rape victim who proved her case to a jury is under attack online. The woman’s convicted rapist has been in prison for a decade. A unanimous jury convicted Marcus Hughes in 2014 of forcible rape and second-degree assault.
Now, 10 years later, the victim is under attack from someone on social media calling her a liar. The St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office is not standing for it.
It’s a case that began 20 years ago in the University City Loop, when a then-25-year-old woman walked out of a bar on Delmar. According to court documents, a man pursued her before taking her to a quiet area, where he repeatedly punched and raped her. He then disappeared.
It took years to identify a suspect. Court records said rape kit DNA samples matched an alleged persistent offender named Marcus Hughes, who was then found guilty of rape and assault in 2014.
Someone is attacking the victim on social media, calling her a “liar” and “face of evil.” She asked that we protect her identity and arranged for us to speak to her advocate.
That advocate, attorney Katherine Wessling of the Crime Victim Center, said the harassment continues online to this day.
“…referring to the (victim’s) family as Satan, (and the victim as) daughter of Satan,” Wessling said.
“Certainly, the fear that you not only have to worry about your attacker, but people who are going to act on their behalf as well, and you don’t even know who they are. They could come out of nowhere at you. That is really a scary thought.”
The St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office charged a man who calls himself a friend of Hughes. Prosecutors have charged that friend, Oran Tyrone Ambus, with six counts of felony harassment for the posts.
Prosecutors also claim Ambus contacted the victim’s friends, co-workers, and business contacts to make his case.
“The detectives who took the report and spent the time building the report—that they could give to the circuit attorney’s office to give them something they could issue charges with, absolutely—those are all first responders that deserve our thanks for taking this seriously,” Wessling said.
For some context on the original rape conviction, FOX 2 contacted retired Judge Michael Mullen.
“There’s so many things that can go wrong in a case that makes it harder to get the conviction,” he said. “When that much time passes, it can be difficult for the state to keep all their evidence together, for a victim to make sure they are consistent in what they’re saying throughout all those years. The longer it goes on, maybe the more likely (the victim is) to maybe not want to go forward with it.”
Wessling adds that survivors can lean on an advocacy agency for support.
“I hope that anyone who is in this situation would feel comfortable reaching out to one of the local agencies, whether it’s mine or our sister agencies, who are here for them because if no one else is there for you, we will be, and we don’t want you to be alone,” she said.
