The City of Cleveland will add three new detectives to go through a backlog of untested rape kits, going back to 1970.
The $3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Justice will allow the city to investigate about 2,100 untested kits. They were collected between 1970 and 1992.
Cleveland Deputy Police Chief Ed Tomba says these kits are all old enough that the crimes cannot be prosecuted because of the state’s statute of limitations on rape cases.
“And if that statute ever changes, we can go back and look at the possible prosecution of these cases," said Tomba.
The current limit for rape prosecutions in Ohio is 25 years. According to Tomba, there are about 6,000 untested kits from before 1993. The county’s sexual assault task force has processed all the kits newer than that. Their investigation led to 700 indictments and the identification of more than 400 repeat offenders.
