ELYRIA — Fired Lorain police officer Stanley Marrero won’t face trial on rape and other charges stemming from 16-year-old allegations that he forced himself on a woman while responding to a call at her home, a judge has ruled.

The woman contacted the Lorain Police Department in 1993 and left her name and telephone number, but never heard back from law enforcement. It wasn’t until 2007, when she again contacted authorities after Marrero was indicted on a similar charge, that her case was investigated, according to the ruling from Common Pleas Judge Edward Zaleski.

“There is no reasonable justification for the failure of the Lorain Police Department to conduct an appropriate investigation in 1993,” Zaleski ruled.

When Marrero was arrested in 2007, the woman sent Lorain police an e-mail stating “He did the same thing to me in the early ’90s. No one did anything!!!!!!” the ruling stated.

At that point, Lorain police Lt. James Rohner contacted the victim, conducted an investigation and, 11 months later, Marrero was indicted on two counts each of rape, sexual battery and gross sexual imposition, and one count of menacing by stalking, according to the ruling.

Marrero sought dismissal of the charges on the basis that the long delay violated his right of due process, and Zaleski agreed.

If the matter had been investigated in 1993, the investigation would have included conducting physical examinations, collecting DNA evidence, taking statements from the complainant, corroborating that statement through telephone records, interviewing the officer involved and other potential witnesses.

“None of this investigation was possible, or conducted, when the matter was again considered for charges in 2008,” Zaleski wrote.

That investigation could have helped to prove the allegations of the woman, but it also could have potentially helped Marrero, the judge ruled.

Subsequent testimony by Rohner showed that evidence that was lost or compromised due to the delay, and it is evidence that should have been considered, the judge wrote.

Marrero, who served on the force for 17 years, could not be reached for comment Thursday. Lorain County Prosecutor Dennis Will did not return a phone call on the dismissal of the charges.

Several months ago, an arbitrator upheld Marrero’s termination after he was convicted of misdemeanor charges of improper behavior involving women.

In the criminal case that led to his firing, Marrero was sentenced to 60 days in jail after a judge found that he had exposed himself to a Lorain woman in 2006, asked for oral sex and threatened to withhold police protection from her if she told anyone about the incident.

Marrero also was convicted of failing to break up a January 2007 fight between two women with whom he was having affairs and then not reporting the incident, even though one of the women had her nose broken. The other woman later was convicted of assault.

According to the arbitrator’s ruling, the behavior continued after Marrero was suspended for three days and given a direct order in 2000 to refrain from further contacting women he met in the line of duty. Barely a year later, Marrero initiated a two-year relationship with a woman he met while on duty and had repeated sexual encounters with her while on duty, according to the arbitrator’s ruling.

He also had sexual encounters with another woman during a five-year period, and the evidence supports a finding that some of the encounters occurred while he was on duty, the ruling stated.

Marrero’s attorney in the case involving his job, Robert Phillips, said Marrero is training to become a commercial truck driver.

Contact Cindy Leise at 329-7245 or cleise@chroniclet.com.

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