smartest man in his room), but:
Man Found Guilty of Raping His Wife
By GEORGE JAMES
Published: December 6, 1995
Every year, the Manhattan District Attorney's office brings a few dozen cases against men accused of raping their wives. In all but a few cases, the men are not convicted, often because the woman decides not to pursue the case.
But on Monday, one of the cases prevailed, in part because the woman was upset that her husband never expressed any remorse over the attack.
The man, Jose Santos, a 37-year-old resident of Washington Heights, was convicted of first-degree rape, first-degree sodomy, first-degree sexual abuse and second-degree assault in the May 9 attack, which prosecutors said was so violent that his wife's ankle was broken.
Linda Fairstein, chief of the Manhattan District Attorney's sex crimes unit, said many of the marital rape cases her office handles never go to trial.
"We lose the victims before the trial," Ms. Fairstein said. "The victims withdraw, choose not to prosecute, some because of fear of reprisal, some because of the psychological feelings involved."
Ms. Fairstein, the author of the book "Sexual Violence: Our War Against Rape" (William Morrow & Company, 1993), said that a wife who has been sexually abused or battered approaches the criminal justice system "with a lot of ambivalence," partly because of "societal attitudes."
"I think the perception has been nationally as a result of the Simpson case that these cases don't do well in the system," Ms. Fairstein said, referring to domestic violence cases in general.
She said the victim of a marital rape may have a love-hate relationship with her spouse and still hopes to resume the relationship. Also, she may not want to see the father of her children go to jail, or is fearful of financial hardship if the wage-earner receives a prison sentence.
In this week's case, the victim, a 35-year-old home-care attendant, saw the prosecution through to the end because her husband denied he had done anything wrong and never showed remorse, said Martha Bashford, the prosecutor handling the case.
"I think she got very indignant at that," Ms. Bashford said.
Since the woman was a rape victim, her name was omitted from the court record. The victim has a different last name than her husband.
Mr. Santos, an unemployed guitar teacher, testified that his wife slipped and broke her ankle as she attacked him with a kitchen knife. He said that he delayed calling an ambulance for three hours, even though she claimed to be intense pain, because she was getting dressed and putting on her makeup.
"You know how women are," he said on the stand.
The victim testified that she and Mr. Santos had been married about a year when they became estranged and he moved out. Several days later, after her two young children by another man had left for school, her husband showed up at her door and began choking and pushing her. She fell, her leg folded awkwardly under her, and her ankle broke.
According to her testimony, Mr. Santos grabbed a kitchen knife and began yelling that it was too late for both of them and they both were going to die. He began to rip her clothes off, she said, but when she screamed in pain he ordered her to take them off. Then he sexually abused her. Throughout the ordeal, he was drinking alcohol and talking incoherently about their relationship.
At one point, Mr. Santos tried to stab her but she moved aside and the knife pierced the mattress. Then he broke down and asked her forgiveness. She finally convinced him to call an ambulance about 11:30 A.M., about three hours after she broke her ankle.
At Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, the victim called a friend who worked for the Department of Correction. When the friend arrived, she got Mr. Santos to leave his wife's side and got a hospital social worker to interview the victim, prosecutors said.
"If he had been willing to admit what he had done and expressed remorse, she would have had a different view" about prosecuting, Ms. Bashford said. "But he kept saying it was her fault."
Mr. Santos faces a minimum of 4 1/2 to 9 years and a maximum of 12 1/2 to 25 years in prison when he is sentenced by Justice Franklyn R. Weissberg of State Supreme Court on Dec. 20.
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1992. This is a very old photo.
