Shortly after being sworn in, Gavin Holihan concluded that his office needed to improve the prosecution of sex crimes. But Lehigh County’s new district attorney didn’t realize how far behind the state was.

Lehigh County landed last in a PennLive data analysis that examined which counties in Pennsylvania had the fewest sex crimes reported to police over the past five years. The county ranked 67th out of 67 counties when sex crime charges were compared to population and the number of police reports filed.

The study confirms what voters were already telling him, Holihan said.

“We had to work at it,” Holihan said.

Holihan said he fielded an unspecified number of requests from police and victims to reopen unprosecuted cases before he took over as prosecutor in January. He reopened some of them, he said.

He didn’t say how many, but said he doesn’t see any trends or themes in the requests. But they were enough for him to take steps to improve the prosecution of sex crimes.

“Have people asked our office to review cases? Was there dissatisfaction with decisions that were made in the past? The honest answer is “Yes,” Holihan said.

The Crime Victims Council of the Lehigh Valley is pleased that Holihan is taking these cases seriously, said the organization’s executive director, Lois Keller. Sexual assault cases are difficult to prosecute even when they are handled well by investigators. They take an emotional toll on victims, who sometimes wait years for a court outcome that doesn’t go their way.

“Most of our clients haven’t gotten the kinds of justice they were hoping to get,” said Sara Ullmer, who oversees volunteers, crisis advocacy and special events for the nonprofit.

Holihan took over in January from former Lehigh County District Attorney James Martin, who did not run for re-election. Martin took office in 1998 and was the longest-serving prosecutor in county history. A message seeking comment from Martin left by the county attorney’s spokesman was not returned.

Over the past five years, Lehigh County police recorded an average of 452 sex crime reports annually from 2019 to 2023, according to the PennLive study. Lehigh County prosecuted about 33 sex crimes a year during that five-year period, according to data obtained from the Pennsylvania Administrative Office of the Courts.

This means that only 7% of sex crimes reported to the police during that period resulted in a criminal charge, and even fewer resulted in arrests and convictions. It ranked last in Pennsylvania. It placed Lehigh among four counties that prosecuted less than 10 percent of reported sex crimes, PennLive found.

“Whatever the numbers are, that’s not good,” Holihan said.

“We knew it was something that needed to be addressed, something that needed to be addressed quickly,” he said.

Its new Chief of Prosecutions, Patricia Fuentes Mulqueen, brings decades of experience and a proactive approach to handling cases involving special victims.

She said she is trying to get an assistant district attorney assigned to cases faster than before.

Assistants can help with police investigations or work with witnesses so they are prepared to testify at a preliminary hearing, she said.

“I think it’s been very helpful for victims and prosecutors,” she said.

Sara Moyer started this year as supervisor of the district attorney’s special victims unit. Sarah Heimbach is a new prosecutor working under Moyer. Detective Tom Galloway retired from the Bethlehem Police Department and now works in Holihan’s office as a special victim investigator. Each has extensive work experience and each brings a fresh perspective to their roles, Holihan said.

The Special Victims Unit charges more than just sex offenders, but all sex crimes fall under that unit. There is no unit or prosecutor dedicated exclusively to sex crimes, so it’s hard to say how much manpower is dedicated to these cases. Serious cases require help from investigators and prosecutors outside the unit, Holihan said.

“In some cases, it’s all hands on deck,” Holihan said.

Holihan added an administrator to the county lab that analyzes data from cell phones and other electronic devices. The administrator handles the paperwork and duties that previously fell to the sole investigator, giving him more time to extract vital information from cell phones and computers.

Getting that data as quickly as possible makes a big difference, he said. Electronic information is cross-checked with data obtained through the county’s information and investigation center.

For example, a phone number found on a cell phone at the forensic electronics lab could appear in a police intelligence database at the regional intelligence center, which could lead to more leads.

Rethinking the old ways

Holihan is part of the team remodeling the John Van Brakle Center for Child Advocacy, a key resource for social service workers and law enforcement to investigate suspected child abuse. This includes child sexual abuse.

Debra Esernio-Jenssen was retired last year as the advocacy center’s medical director. More than a dozen families sued hersaying they were wrongfully accused of child abuse.

Lehigh Valley Health Network, Lehigh County government officials and Holihan are working together to establish a new children’s advocacy center in downtown Allentown.

“Part of the goal is to make it more prosecution-focused than hospital-focused,” Holihan said.

Holihan believes the new staff and new approaches will help improve his office’s track record.

“We looked at everything and made a lot of substantive changes dedicated to special victims,” ​​he said.

“I appreciate DA Hollihan’s commitment to making improvements for survivors,” said Lori Sywensky, Executive Director of Turning Point of Lehigh Valley. The organization supports victims of domestic violence and works closely with the Crime Victims Council of the Lehigh Valley.

Keller, the board director, said she discussed her concerns about sexual assault cases with Holihan shortly after he took office.

“He’s approachable and he listens,” Keller said.

But I disagree with some of Keller’s suggestions. She believes too few emergency room nurses are being interviewed by investigators to support their cases. Her staff spoke with the nurses at St. Luke’s and Lehigh Valley Health Network, and anecdotal evidence suggests that very few of them are called to testify after administering rape kits. That makes her wonder if investigators are following up after these tests are done.

Holihan said it is extremely rare for a nurse to be called to testify about collecting evidence from a rape kit. In any case, that call would come from a defense attorney seeking to discredit a victim. And most defense attorneys don’t want to inflame a jury by eliciting testimony about something so invasive and traumatic for a victim.

Keller said her organization could provide help and a new perspective on stalled investigations.

When she worked for a children’s advocacy center in Philadelphia, the police department invited victim advocates to review all of its sexual assault case files. The attorneys have agreed to keep all information confidential. They found cases where rape test kits were returned from labs, but the police didn’t follow up. They discovered flaws in the way police interviewed victims, leading to trauma-informed police training.

The analysis led police to reopen 681 rape cases and 1,141 sexual assault cases, according to the Women’s Rights Project. The Philadelphia case evaluation model is being adopted by police departments across the U.S. and Canada, Keller said.

If it worked in Philadelphia, it could work in the Lehigh Valley, she said. “I would like to see more counties do this,” Keller said.

Holihan is skeptical.

“The idea of ​​opening the files of a victim advocacy organization would present many legal challenges that could affect an investigation as biased,” he said in an email.

Holihan acknowledges that PennLive’s statistics highlight a serious shortcoming, but he already suspected his office needed to improve those prosecutions and said he has taken steps to address it.

“I wasn’t aware of the numbers until you brought them to my attention,” Holihan admitted. “That’s something I don’t think any office would be proud of.”