[Times photo: Janel Schroeder-Norton]
The jury found John A. Casteel guilty of sexual battery, armed burglary and aggravated assault Thursday. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

"It's like somebody believes me, finally," the 43-year-old woman said afterward. "I was right. I didn't lie."

She was referring to her treatment at the hands of Detective Jackie Pehote, who doubted that the woman had been raped, even after the victim said the same attacker returned 29 days later and assaulted her again.

It was not until after the victim herself happened upon the rapist in a convenience store that Pehote made an arrest. Prosecutor Dorothy Vaccaro said as much in her closing argument when she referred to the victim as a "person who solves her own crime."

After a four-day trial, the jury began deliberating at 11:40 a.m. At 12:40 p.m., they had a verdict: John A. Casteel was guilty of sexual battery, armed burglary and aggravated assault.

Two hours later, Circuit Judge Craig C. Villanti sentenced the 43-year-old Casteel -- who had previously served 14 years for rape -- to life in prison without parole.

Three of the six jurors, the woman said later, shook her hand as they filed out of the courthouse. "We believe you," one of them told her.

"I wanted to jump up and scream, "I told you so!"' said the woman, whose identity is being withheld because of the nature of the crime. "The cops weren't there (in the courtroom), but that's who it would have been directed toward."

New Port Richey police Capt. Darryl Garman said Thursday night that the agency would take a hard look at the handling of this case, as well as others.

"We're going to set up a meeting with the state attorney's office, and if there are training issues we need to discuss, we will identify those and address them. And if there are personnel issues, those will also be addressed." As she waited more than two years for justice, the woman never publicly criticized the police, fearing it might jeopardize the case against Casteel. But after the verdict, her frustration poured out.

"I think all of them should have some retraining in sensitivity and how to deal with people who are in shock and going through a traumatic situation," the woman said. "They treated me terribly."

That treatment began within days after Casteel's attack on the woman on Dec. 5, 1998. The woman told police she had been beaten, bound, gagged and raped repeatedly in an assault that left her with a swollen left eye and 15 broken teeth.

Four days later, Pehote told the victim she doubted her story.

"I believe that you were battered," Pehote told the woman, according to an audio tape of the interview. "But I do not believe it happened the way you say."

According to a pretrial deposition, Pehote thought the victim had been beaten by a boyfriend, or someone the woman brought home from a bar. Pehote's fellow detective did not send out for testing of the semen sample taken from the woman.

The woman installed a burglar alarm in her house in the days after the attack. On Jan. 3, 1999, the alarm went off, but two New Port Richey police officers who responded to the call did not go inside. The woman said they never asked to come in and look around. An officer testified that she denied their entry.

Minutes after the police left, prosecutors said, the rapist struck again. This time, fearing another severe beating, the woman submitted.

The woman turned again to Pehote for help. The detective was not sympathetic, according to the victim, and asked her, "How could you be so stupid to move back into your house?"

The investigation, Pehote said in her deposition, "pretty much got put on the back burner" until April 26, 1999, when the woman opened a drink cooler in a New Port Richey Amoco station. In the glass, she saw the reflection of her attacker, who backed away and hid in a corner of the store.

She called Pehote, who ran a background check and learned that Casteel had been convicted of raping a woman in Jacksonville in 1983. The detective tracked down Casteel, who said he had consensual sex with the New Port Richey woman.

Tests eventually linked Casteel's DNA to semen samples taken from the woman.

Casteel was on trial this week for the first rape of the New Port Richey woman, not the second. However, Villanti allowed prosecutors to present evidence relating to the January attack because it showed a pattern of behavior.

Vaccaro, the prosecutor, did not question Pehote about her investigation, a strategic move that blocked public defender Phil Cohen from asking the detective about her doubts.

Although Cohen could have called Pehote as a defense witness, the judge had already ruled that the detective's opinions about the credibility of the victim were inadmissible.

After pronouncing Casteel's sentence, Judge Villanti's thoughts turned to the woman, who clutched a good-luck necklace with trembling hands.

"The victim, I pray, will put this behind her," Villanti said.

It won't be easy, the woman said.

"(Casteel) is going away, so he can't get me again," she said. "But I don't see me having a life like I did before."

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