The ruling was an uplifting but ultimately hollow victory for Shawn Dirks. Though he applied to several local police agencies in its aftermath, no one would hire him as an officer.
Dirks says he began to realize that he didn't even want to be a cop anymore.
Jackie Mercandetti
Shawn Dirks, January 2004
Lori Levinson (left), at a Phoenix police station a few hours after her alleged rape. Investigators took photos (right) of scratches that Levinson said she'd gotten during the "asualt."
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"It's not worth it," he says. "I don't want to deal with it."
On successive days in December 2002, Lori Levinson underwent a psychiatric evaluation and a deposition, the latter by an attorney for the City of Phoenix.
Attorneys for both sides denied New Times access to the evaluation, which was conducted by nationally known Scottsdale forensic psychiatrist Steven Pitt.
But in the deposition, Levinson claimed to recall little about being raped in February 2001. She said she did recall stopping in the church parking lot that night because she was too drunk to drive.
"My next memory," Levinson testified, "is being in extreme pain, somebody sodomizing me, screaming, struggling, feeling like it was lasting forever . . . I think -- I believe, that I was bent over the driver's seat."
The next thing she said she remembered was being in the back seat of a police car.
Levinson said she recalled nothing about being handcuffed, having her tooth knocked out by Dirks, or ever seeing another officer at the scene. Nor did she know how her vehicle had gotten from the church lot to the street.
"Is it your testimony that the officer placed you in the back of his patrol car with your pants down?" the city's Georgia Staton asked her.
"I don't know," Levinson said.
During the deposition, Levinson now recalled Dirks had threatened her on the trip to the police station, telling her "that I'd better not say anything, nobody would believe me anyway. If I said anything, my life would be made a living hell."
Staton asked Levinson why she had sued Shawn Dirks.
"For justice, to get him off the streets," said Levinson, who is living in Las Vegas these days.
"Do you want money?"
"I don't know."
"What do you want?"
"I want justice served."
"And what does that mean to you?"
"It means getting him put behind bars where he belongs."
Lori Levinson's lawyer, Mark Breyer, says he's eager to start the civil trial, which is scheduled for April.
"Somebody's right and somebody's wrong here, and the jury is going to tell us who that is," Breyer says.
Shawn Dirks says he's been enjoying his new job as a technician for a fire-protection firm. He says he's sick of hearing the name Lori Levinson, but that he, too, is anxiously awaiting his day in court.
Jill Dirks says she's very proud of how her husband has comported himself since being accused of a horrible crime.
"Shawn is a great husband and a great dad, a great guy," she says. "This has been such a scary thing for us."
Jill Dirks pauses for a moment before completing her thought.
"This shouldn't have happened to him," she continues. "There are two entities who put us into this position, one being Lori Levinson and the other being the City of Phoenix. I still think the Phoenix police are going to call us and say, We're sorry we did this to you, sorry we didn't do a decent investigation on the front end. Sorry we didn't believe you. Please take your job back.' Call me dumb."
E-mail paul.rubin@newtimes.com, or call 602-229-8433.
