Family asks, was justice done?

HARLINGEN — It’s been almost three and a half years since a 20-year-old college student said she was raped in an ambulance during Spring Break on South Padre Island.

Island police arrested the suspect the same day, March 15, 2014.

But it wouldn’t be until two years later that Samuel Edward Benson III, of McAllen, would be indicted on second-degree felony sexual assault.

And it wouldn’t be until three weeks ago that the case finally went to trial. This past Tuesday, after numerous court delays, a jury convicted Benson of sexual assault.

The jury sentenced him to 10 years probation. The judge ordered him to jail for 180 days as a term of probation, the maximum allowed.

The victim’s aunt, Nancy Johnson, questions whether justice was done.

“You might say justice was finally done. Not so fast. … I’m not sure the definition of justice is in Brownsville, TX (where the trial was held),” she said in an email.

Johnson believes Benson was able to “manipulate his way around the system.”

“Why did it take so long?” Johnson said Friday.

“Why three and a half years? In the mean time, this person was out there — he was out of jail the whole time.”

Johnson was stunned by the sentence.

“I think it’s ridiculous. How can somebody in a position of trust — he was an ambulance attendant — sexually assault a woman and get away with it like that?” she said.

“Six months? I mean, there are shoplifters who get more time than that, six months in jail. And 10 years probation.

“I’m flabbergasted.”

The victim said she was attending a Spring Break concert on the Island when she was injured and sustained a concussion.

She was loaded into an ambulance to be taken to an emergency medical tent. She said that while ewn route, she was raped by an ambulance attendant.

Island police were dispatched to the Spring Break Mobile Emergency Medical Tent about 9 p.m. and made contact with the victim, according to the police report.

“Investigation revealed that a suspect had sexually assaulted the victim,” the report states.

Benson was arrested that night on a sexual assault charge, the report states. He was released a few days later on bond.

He would remain free for the next three and a half years. The case finally went to a grand jury in 2016, resulting in his indictment.

But the case would linger. It would be set for trial, reset and reset again and again, for a total of seven trial dates.

District Attorney Luis V. Saenz said several factors came together to cause the case to take so long.

Why did it take two years to get to a grand jury? Saenz pointed to DNA testing of the rape kit.

“When you’re talking about DNA testing on any case, on the front end, it’s going to take you a year, a year and a half, for DNA testing to work its way through the different labs and experts and what not,” he said.

“And once the defense gets the DNA lab results from the state, from the DA’s Office, then they are entitled to hire their experts to, for lack of a better word, dispute the DNA.

“So their experts can require time in doing their own evaluation. So it’s a very lengthy process.”

As to delays in getting the case to trial, Saenz said there was “a lot of jockeying on both sides.”

But he said Benson had at least two different defense attorneys, which contributed to the delay.

Another factor is that while the criminal case was proceeding, the state had initiated a civil case to forfeit the ambulance. Saenz said Benson was not only the ambulance attendant, but also the owner of the ambulance.

“So that was working its way through the system at the same time as the criminal case,” he said.

Saenz said he is also “very disappointed” with the sentence of probation.

“I think it’s not the kind of message you want to send out to the community that if you’re found guilty of a sexual assault — which is a horrendous crime — that the jury is going to give you probation,” Saenz said.

“But, by the same token, that’s the jury system.”

He said the prosecutors in the case also were disappointed.

“To spend years on a case and to prepare for trial and go through a very emotionally draining and emotionally taxing trial for three weeks and then to have a jury say, well, probation, that’s extremely disappointing,” he said.