People v. Jovanovic
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People v. Jovanovic, 263 A.D.2d 182, 700 N.Y.S.2d 156 (N.Y. App. Div. 1st Dep't 1999), was a highly publicized criminal case in New York. In 1996, Oliver Jovanovic (born 1966) was accused of sadomasochistic torture of a woman whom he had met shortly before on the Internet. He was convicted in 1998 and the conviction was overturned on appeal in 1999 because parts of email messages between the two had been improperly excluded as evidence at trial. The woman declined to testify during the retrial in 2001 and the case was dropped.
In the summer of 1996, the woman (then a 20-year old student at Barnard College) made the acquaintance of Jovanovic (then a graduate student in microbiology at Columbia University) in an internet chat room. Shortly thereafter, the woman talked to family and friends about the incident, and filed a complaint with the police. Linda Fairstein, head of the sex-crime division of Manhattan's District Attorney's office, then decided to press charges.
After a jury trial during which the woman testified for six days, Jovanovic was convicted and sentenced to 15 years to life for kidnapping, sexual abuse and assault. Shortly before the jury's verdict, Jovanovic had refused a plea bargain offered by the prosecution.
Jovanovic served 20 months in prison during which a fellow prisoner had slashed his throat, causing Jovanovic to almost die.
The prosecution unsuccessfully appealed this decision and then again offered a plea bargain to Jovanovic, which he refused. On the eve of the retrial in October 2001, it was revealed that the woman was not willing to testify again, and the case was dismissed with prejudice.
Throughout the trials, Jovanovic had benefited from an extensive and vocal network of supporters; he said that his defense cost about $500,000. After his release, he successfully completed his doctorate degree with honors.
In October 2004 he filed a civil suit against New York City, claiming that the false allegations had harmed his reputation. The suit also named prosecutor Linda Fairstein, a millionaire from her best-selling crime novels.[1] In August 2006 a Manhattan Federal judge rejected the city's arguments seeking to dismiss the $10 million suit.[2]
Jovanovic received his Ph.D. in 2002. As of 2005, Jovanovic worked as an instructor for computational biology and microbiology at Columbia.
[edit] References
- ^ Metropolitan Desk; FOLLOWING UP. The New York Times, 28 August 2005
- ^ OK for bogus-rape suit - $10M for cybersex jail time. New York Post, 26 August 2006.
