In September 2015, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office was awarded a nearly $2,000,000 grant from the New York County District Attorney’s Office (DANY) for the testing of previously untested sexual assault kits in Multnomah, Marion and Lane Counties. On April 1, 2016, the Portland Police Bureau announced the first round of shipments of these kits being sent off for testing.
District Attorney Rod Underhill created an experienced team of experts in their field to work on this project. The Untested Sexual Assault Kit (USAK) Team includes:
DDA Amity Girt, a prosecutor with nearly 10 years of experience including the prosecution of sexual assault, child sexual abuse and domestic violence cases. Ms. Girt will work to coordinate the submission and testing of the kits across the three counties as well as prosecution efforts within this county.
Susan Hormann, a forensic consultant recently hired by this office. Ms. Hormann was formerly a lieutenant with the Oregon State Police (Forensic Services Division). She has 27 years of forensic experiences, 18 of which were in forensic DNA and included the analysis of sexual assault kits. She has testified to analytical results in more than 100 trials covering the State of Oregon. Additionally, she was the DNA supervisor for three years and served as the operations manager at OSP for five years. With this expertise, Ms. Hormann will advise the team on forensic-related issues for sexual assault kits tested under the DANY grant.
Kim Phillips-Clark, a victim advocate with more than 12 years of advocate experience. Ms. Phillips-Clark will lead victim contact and notification efforts from the forensic testing phase though any additional investigation and prosecution. She has been an advocate in cases from all units within this office since 2004, including sexual assault and domestic violence cases.
This team, along with our partner agencies, will bring their high-level expertise to this extremely important project as this office oversees the testing of nearly 2800 previously untested sexual assault kits from three Oregon counties.