Madison police arrested a suspect of a sexual assault that took place on State Street earlier this month on Sunday.
Jonathan Evenson, 37, was tentatively charged with second-degree sexual assault and the delivery of non-narcotics, according to a Madison Police Department statement.
The victim, a Madison woman, 22, was walking home the morning of Sept. 5, the statement said. Evenson approached the woman on State Street around 1:27 a.m., and proceeded to take the victim to his downtown law office and then to his home on the west side, the statement said.
Evenson allegedly sexually assaulted the victim at both locations after giving her ecstasy. The cash bail for Evenson was set for $70,000, MPD spokesperson Joel DeSpain said.
Evenson was previously convicted of two counts of battery in an alcohol related disturbance near the campus area in 2010, according to Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4.
Verveer said the police took so long to make the arrest because a sensitive crime like this one takes a while to sort out. Verveer said the frequency of drugs being used in sexual assaults is upsetting.
“It is sad how often drugs seem to be involved in sexual assaults,” Verveer said.
The statement did not say whether or not the victim is a University of Wisconsin student. Kelly Anderson, Dane County Rape Crisis Center executive director, said the center provides a significant amount of its services to UW students who are sexual assault victims.
Of the sexual assault cases the center sees, drugs or alcohol are used by at least one party 50 to 60 percent of the time, Anderson said. However, Anderson said the use of judgment-clouding substances does not explain assaults of any nature.
“Alcohol doesn’t rape people,” Anderson said. “People rape people.”
This sexual assault case is one of the several cases of sexual assault that occurred in the UW campus area this year, including one on the intersection of Langdon and Frances Street on Sept. 22 and one on the 100 block of Langdon Street on Sept. 16.
Both incidents were stranger assaults, according to MPD statements, and police have not arrested any suspects yet. The victims in those cases were college age females and were assaulted in the early morning hours.
