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DeWine: Testing Complete on 80 Percent of 13K Rape Kits
By: Associated Press
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COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) – Ohio’s attorney general says 11,000 sexual assault kits have been tested by the state’s forensic scientists under an initiative launched in 2011 to check for evidence from previously untested kits.
Attorney General Mike DeWine says about 13,800 kits were submitted by several hundred law enforcement agencies. Testing is complete on roughly 80 percent of those.
DeWine’s office says that has led to nearly 4,000 hits in a DNA index system and indictments of hundreds of defendants.
The testing initiative began in 2011. Legislation that took effect last year mandated that any remaining untested sexual assault kits associated with crimes be submitted by law enforcement agencies to a crime laboratory by March 2016.
Rape kits from new cases have to be submitted within a month after investigators determine a crime occurred.