Rape suspect arrested after delay in issuing warrant lasts more than one year

Posted: Aug 8, 2008 06:21 PM CDT




In spring 2007, a woman was brutally raped after bar time in Madison. Within weeks, police had a suspect. But it took more than a year for the district attorney's office to take action.

"It's a serious mistake," Dane County district attorney Brian Blanchard told 27 News.


The suspect, Anderson Dasilva, 28, was arrested Friday in Clinton Massashusetts. He's being held on a burglary charge and is expected to be brought back here to be charged with sexually assaulting a woman in March of last year.

Authorities said a 23-year-old woman accepted a ride from a stranger outside the Kollege Klub in downtown Madison at bar time, March 10, 2007. Officials said the stranger brutally raped the woman, and later dropped her off. "I thought I was going to die," the victim is quoted as telling police officers in the criminal complaint against Dasilva.

Records show by May 2007, police had evidence to support their identification of Dasilva as a suspect, and referred the case to the Dane County District attorney's office, asking for an arrest warrant. In July, Blanchard said the case was referred to assistant Dane County district attorney Mike Finley.

But nothing happened for over a year.

On August 5 of this year, a warrant for Dasilva's arrest was filed with Dane County's Clerk of Courts.

Blanchard told 27 News the delay in taking action in the rape case was unacceptable, even though assistant district attornies are swamped with incoming, criminal case work.

"It's a big mistake and it shouldn't have happened," Blanchard said. "A mistake of this type is much more likely to occur when attornies are booked into three different courtrooms at the same time, and have stacks and stacks of intake to look at on any given day."

Blanchard said a review is taking place into his office's handling of the case. In case referrals where suspects have already been arrested, the district attorney typically must take action within a few days.

Blanchard said a state analysis showed his office staff is ten attorney positions short of what is needed in relation to case load. Madison Police Chief Noble Wray told 27 News while he is frustrated this request for court authority to make the rape arrest was delayed, he concurred with Blanchard resources for prosecutors have lagged behind the growth of crime cases and the county's population.

Blanchard refused comment on whether Finley faces potential discipline for his inaction in the case. Both Blanchard and Wray refused to specify why Finley did not take action until fourteen months after the request from police officers for court authority to make the arrest.

Finley has an arrest history himself. Finley was arrested in an alcohol-related, disorderly conduct case in July 2001, and for drunken driving in November of that same year. In June 2006, Finley fell asleep on his boat in a river channel after drinking, prompting 911 calls and a sheriff's lakes patrol escort to shore.

Court documents show the rape victim made phone calls from the cell phone of one of Dasilva's friends before the crime. Documents show detectives used phone records to find Dasilva's friend and then develop Dasilva as the rape suspect.

A source close to this investigation told 27 News authorities believe Dasilva is in this country illegally and that he may have considered crossing the border with Mexico to avoid arrest.

Dasilva's alleged rape took place three months before UW-Whitewater student Kelly Nolan disappeared after a night of drinking in downtown Madison. Nolan's body was later found in rural Dane County and her death was ruled a homicide.

Wray said Dasilva could not be ruled out as a person of interest in the continuing Nolan investigation because of Dasilva's alleged actions in the March rape. "There are elements that are similar between the two cases," Wray told 27 News. Wray said the similarities included drinking by both victims before the crimes, and a sequence of criminal events appearing to begin at bar time in both cases. Court documents in the March rape case quote Dasilva's friend as reporting Dasilva and his wife left Madison for Massachusetts shortly after the rape took place.





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