New York, Jul. 6, 2000 - New York's highest court upheld the overturning of the controversial "cybersex" case verdict, finding that the Appellate Division had reversed the conviction of Oliver Jovanovic in the "interests of justice".
Jovanovic, 34, a doctoral student at Columbia University, was convicted in so-called cybersex case in 1998 after he was accused by a Barnard student of kidnapping and sexually assaulting her on a date. They had met on the Internet. Jovanovic, his family and his lawyers, had always held that the case was a hoax based on fabricated charges and argued in his appeal that his trial was ridden with errors and prosecutorial misconduct.
The Appellate Division ruled on Dec. 21, 1999 that he be granted a new trial, finding that the trial judge - Acting Justice William Wetzel - had repeatedly misapplied the New York State Rape Shield Law by redacting several emails between the accuser and the defendant, including email that suggested she had previously made false claims of sexual assault.
The prosecution appealed the ruling of the Appellate Division to the Court of Appeals, New York state's highest court, filing a confidential brief not made available to the public on 5/30/2000. The Court of Appeals dismissed the prosecution's appeal today.
Jovanovic's case is unprecedented for a sexual assault case in that his accuser's family, including her grandmother and aunts, have thrown their support behind him. They have dismissed his accuser's claims as a hoax, one of a number of false accusations made by their niece and granddaughter.
The full text of the Court of Appeals decision, issued today, reads:
Motion to dismiss appeal granted and appeal dismissed upon the ground that the reversal at the Appellate Division was not "on the law alone or upon the law and such facts which, but for the determination of law, would not have led to reversal" (CPL 450.90[2][a]). Although the order states that the reversal is on the law, the opinion reveals that an independent ground for reversal was the applicability of the CPL 60.42(5) "interests of justice" exception to the Rape Shield Law.
[ Home | Oliver Jovanovic | Press Articles | The Allegations | The DA & The Media | Assault on Civil Liberties | About Judge William Wetzel | Commentary | The Reversal | The Legal Defense Fund ]