The Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office must strengthen its practices and prioritize crimes  of Domestic Violence, Intimate Partner Violence, Teen Dating Violence, Stalking, Sexual Assault and Sexual Exploitation. This requires an intentional commitment to conducting trauma-informed investigations and prosecutions that empower victims and survivors to report crimes and participate in the criminal justice process to ensure that offenders are held accountable. It also requires enhanced support and advocacy for survivors in meaningful collaboration with community-based services and prevention programs, including teaching about healthy relationships and how to recognize signs of grooming in children and young adults.

The 2023 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS) published by the Centers for Disease Control estimated that 60.9% of Massachusetts women and 33.3% of Massachusetts men reported experiencing contact sexual violence in their lifetime.  As high as they are, these percentages may not reveal the full scope of the problem because these crimes are notoriously underreported because of fear of retaliation, disbelief and shame, and embarrassment.  As District Attorney, I will work with stakeholders to foster a culture that encourages and supports reporting sexual crimes and holding offenders accountable while also maximizing survivors’ autonomy.

This work is personal to me. While serving as a prosecutor in the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, I was the Chief of the Domestic Violence Unit, which included prosecuting sexual assault by intimate partners. In private practice, I have spent over 20 years specializing in representing survivors of sexual abuse and harassment in litigation against offenders and responsible third parties, from the family of the victim of the alleged “Craigslist Killer”, to victims of the Catholic Church Clergy Sexual Abuse Scandal, and a patient molested by disgraced fertility doctor Roger Hardy that exposed a decade-long pattern of patient sexual abuse.  I have conducted over 150 investigations of sexual misconduct in K-12 schools, colleges and workplaces involving students and adults. These investigations underscore the critical need for improved policies and practices that promote safety, well-being and fairness for all students and that ensure that victims’ voices are heard and that they are treated with respect and dignity.

I am also incredibly proud of an amicus brief I wrote to the state’s highest court that helped preserve a rule of evidence critical in sexual assault criminal prosecutions.

This important work continues to this day.

As District Attorney, I will:

• Aggressively prosecute abusers and offenders by prioritizing domestic violence, intimate partner violence, stalking, sexual assault and sexual abuse and exploitation cases, using expert witnesses and evidence-based approaches to reduce victim re-traumatization while holding offenders fully accountable. I also recognize that victims and survivors have the right to pursue justice outside the criminal justice system and, as such, my office will support survivors who wish to explore other paths to justice, either in addition to or instead of the criminal justice system.  

• Center victims’ safety and autonomy by expanding access to highly trained Victim Witness Advocates who provide risk assessments, safety planning, trauma-informed services, inform victims and survivors of their rights and ensure their input is included at all stages of the legal process. 

• Strengthen collaborations with community and state agency partners including the Massachusetts Office for Victim Assistance, shelters, hospitals, rape crisis centers, advocacy organizations, schools, faith and culturally specific organizations, and protective services for children, adults and individuals with disabilities, among others to ensure survivors receive comprehensive support and resources.

• Provide enhanced support to the Norfolk Advocates for Children (NAC), a nationally accredited children’s advocacy center that provides a child-friendly, mulitidisciplinary, interagency response to children and families when reports of child abuse arise. 

• Enhance specialized training for prosecutors, law enforcement, Victim Witness Advocates and support staff on trauma, coercive control, and the dynamics of abuse to improve investigations and outcomes for individual victims and survivors and the community as a whole.

• Prevent future violence through early intervention, enforcement of restraining orders, targeted offender monitoring, and public education about consent and healthy relationships.

• Vicarious traumatization. Integrate training and organizational responses to the needs of staff as individuals consistently exposed to the trauma of those they serve and experience the impact of secondary traumatic stress. Office-wide policies and practices that address this need are critical to ensuring the wellbeing of staff and the delivery of the highest quality of care.    

We must be steadfast in our commitment to preserving the safety of Norfolk County’s residents, give survivors a voice, and send a clear message that no one is above the law.