Thursday, District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro dropped the rape charges filed against concert promoter Stephen Rehage last November. After a grand jury interviewed witnesses and the evidence was reviewed, “a determination was made that the charges could not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt,” Assistant District Attorney Christopher Bowman said.
The charges were dropped a year and two days after Rehage and an unnamed woman met for dinner and drinks. The two had sex—he claimed it was consensual, the woman claimed that she lost consciousness at some point in the night and regained consciousness naked in his bed with his hands around her neck. The police came and got the woman and took her home. The next day, she went to the Interim LSU Public Hospital for a sexual assault exam, which revealed vaginal tears and bruises around her neck. A toxicology report showed that she had Darvon, a mild painkiller propoxyphene (also known as Darvon), and the antihistamine diphenhydramine—Benedryl—in her system.
In an April interview with The Times-Picayune when the case went to the grand jury, Rehage’s attorney Pat Fanning was confident that the evidence favored his client, including text messages between Rehage and the woman three days after the alleged rape including one in which the woman thanked him for checking up on her. Witnesses, he claims, would testify that the two were affectionate at Mondo and at a party at the Steak Knife, and that she chose to go home with him.
According to the Times-Picayune story, Fanning says that at Rehage’s house
the woman first called her sister, who then called the woman’s boyfriend, who called police with a report of a hostage situation. Donning SWAT gear, police tracked her cell-phone signal and found her in Rehage’s apartment, fiddling with her cell phone and denying any hostage scenario, according to Fanning.
Bowman stated that the District Attorney’s office could reopen the case should new evidence merit it. Rehage declined comment, but according to Fanning, “We’re happy to have it over with.”
