Sexual assault victim must pay child support to attacker fighting to change California law

April 5, 2012 – Crystal Harris, a San Diego woman who accused her husband, Shawn Harris, of sexually abusing her and then was forced to pay him child support before he was sentenced, said her marriage failed when he had repeatedly threatened to kill her.

“I believed his threat,” she said. “I started living in this strange world that just felt like a house of horrors, I called it.”

Now her story could change California state law.

Crystal Harris, 39, and her now ex-husband Shawn Harris, 40, were once college sweethearts. They married in 1996. She said there had been isolated incidents of domestic violence over the years and then in 2008, Shawn sexually assaulted her while her two sons were upstairs. She managed to tape record the attack using a tape recorder she had hidden in her drawer. In the audio recording, albeit muffled, Crystal could be seen pleading with her husband, saying, “I don't want to be raped” and “You're hurting my neck.”

“I had a mental note of where the record button was,” she said. “So, you know, I just talk to Shawn and I just press it and then I just close the drawer.”

Despite Shawn Harris' history of domestic violence and the fact that he was awaiting a separate rape trial during the divorce proceedings, Family Court Judge Gregory Pollack ordered Crystal Harris to pay her husband $1,000 per month, in part because she The family's breadwinner was , a financial advisor who earns about $120,000 a year while her husband stayed home with the children. Before their sons were born, Shawn Harris worked as a used car salesman.

“The computer came up with an amount of $3,000 a month that I should pay Shawn, but the judge lowered the amount to $1,000 a month,” Crystal Harris said. “That’s what I call the rape discount because he thought he was doing me this huge favor.”

But Pollack didn't see it that way, telling the court: “It's a long-term marriage. “He's a stay-at-home dad…how can you say there shouldn't be support without being sexist?” He even suggested that Shawn Harris should get more money since he wasn't hireable.

“He's out on bail for rape and I'm not sure any car salesman would hire someone like that,” Pollack said in court.

“It doesn’t matter how much someone earns. It’s about being a victim of crime,” Crystal Harris said.

Pollack declined Nightline's request for an interview. In a statement, a spokesperson told “Nightline” that “no sitting judge cannot discuss the procedural details of an ongoing case.”

In the criminal case, Shawn Harris claimed the sex was consensual and said both he and Crystal screamed and screamed to “get our adrenaline pumping during sex.” The tape helped secure his conviction for forced oral sex. The other two charges he faced – forcible marital rape and sodomy – resulted in a vacancy in the jury and the district attorney decided not to retry the case. Shawn Harris could be released from Donovan State Prison in 2014.

Crystal Harris said she believes the tape was key to the conviction.

“Without that tape, we would not have been able to prosecute,” Crystal Harris said. “And I would probably be dead today.”

But in family court, before the criminal trial, the judge said Harris was still responsible for some of her husband's legal fees for the divorce proceedings. She agreed in a settlement to pay $47,000 of Shawn's legal costs.

Michele Hagan, a legal analyst and former assistant district attorney who has prosecuted domestic violence cases, said she told the judge he was “completely wrong.”

“It traumatizes them even more because they handcuff them to their tormentor and have to pay him some money,” she said. “What is happening is that perpetrators are using the family court to further victimize their victims.”

San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis said that while there is already a law prohibiting alimony payments for people convicted of attempting to murder their spouse, it should also cover those convicted of violent sexual assault .

“I think it's about bringing common sense to the books,” Dumanis said. “We see that the law needs to be changed and we will make sure it is changed.”

Crystal Harris has gone public with her story in hopes of getting California's law passed. Rep. Toni Atkins introduced a bill that would spare any victim of a violent sexual crime committed by a spouse from having to pay alimony to the violent former spouse.

Last month, Harris told her story before the California State Assembly Judiciary Committee. The bipartisan committee passed the bill with Rep. Bob Wieckowski voting against.

“I understand it is an unpopular position and my condolences go out to Ms. Harris,” Wieckowski told the Judiciary Committee. “But bad facts can have dire legal consequences, and I have serious concerns that these crimes will be added to the mix.”

The bill will be submitted to the Assembly for discussion. If passed, it will be forwarded to the State Senate.

Most rape victims remain hidden from the public, but Crystal Harris said she needs to step out of the shadows.

“It takes a real person, a real victim, to state their case, show their face and advocate for the law to be passed one step at a time,” Crystal Harris said. “It could happen to another woman.”