DETROIT, Mich. — A woman who says a uniformed Detroit officer kidnapped and raped her at gunpoint in 2005 has sued the City of Detroit, the Detroit Police Department and retired Sgt. Benjamin Wagner in federal court.
The 31-page complaint, filed Oct. 23 in the federal court in Detroit, says she was 18 and walking home on the west side when a patrol car stopped beside her. She says she did not learn the identity of her attacker until DNA testing tied Wagner to the case.
The suit blames the city for ignoring warning signs about Wagner and for an evidence system that let thousands of rape kits sit untested. The Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office came across close to 12,000 kits that had never been tested in 2009, stored in a police warehouse, and hers was among them. Beyond money damages, she wants a court order forcing the city to test every remaining kit and to change how officers handle sexual assault cases.
Wagner served on the force from 1989 until he retired in 2017. In a separate criminal case, the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office has charged him in six kidnapping and sexual assault cases from 1999 to 2003 on the west side involving victims who were 14 to 23 years old. His defense lawyer has said the charges are allegations and that he has not been convicted. That trial is set for April 2027.
Section: More Detroit MI crime news
Filed under: Detroit MI Crime News
