People v. Jovanovic is a widely reported New York criminal case at the crossing of alleged sadomasochistic assault, early internet dating, and evidence law. In the summer of 1996, Jamie Rzucek, then twenty and a Barnard College student, met Oliver Jovanovic, born in 1966, a Columbia University microbiology graduate student, in an internet chat room. Their emails and phone calls mentioned Joel-Peter Witkin’s corpse photography and snuff films. Rzucek said she was interested in the latter. On 22 November they had dinner, went to Jovanovic’s apartment, and watched Meet the Feebles. Rzucek later alleged she was held there against her will for about twenty hours and was bound, gagged, sodomized, and tortured. Jovanovic said the acts were consensual. They kept emailing. In one message she wrote that she was “quite bruised mentally and physically, but never been so happy to be alive,” and she used a line from Naked Lunch about a taste that is “overpoweringly delicious” and “quite nauseating.” Weeks later she went to the police. Officers first thought the complaint was not enough to charge. Linda Fairstein, then head of the Manhattan District Attorney’s sex-crimes unit, decided to prosecute after speaking with her.
At trial Rzucek testified for six days. Jovanovic was convicted of kidnapping, sexual abuse, and assault and sentenced to fifteen years to life. He had refused a plea bargain shortly before the verdict. He served twenty months. Another prisoner injured his neck while he was inside. During the case Rzucek’s grandmother, Fay Webster, told the press that her granddaughter had a history of lying and fabrication, called the accusations against Oliver “just another of her fabrications,” and urged the prosecutor to drop the case.
The appeal and the rape-shield ruling
Jovanovic was released on 20 December 1999. In an opinion by Justice David Saxe, the Appellate Division held that Acting Justice William Wetzel had misapplied New York’s rape shield law. The court said portions of Rzucek’s emails about her own sadomasochistic interests and experiences should not have been kept out of examination. In one message she called herself a “pushy bottom,” a submissive who steers the dominant toward what the bottom wants. In another she described herself as the slave of a sadomasochistic boyfriend. Had the emails been admitted, the defense could have cross-examined her on them. In July 2000 New York’s highest court affirmed that appellate decision and refused to reinstate the conviction. That court is not the trial-level New York Supreme Court. The Manhattan District Attorney announced a retrial. Jovanovic called the move vindictive and again refused to plead guilty.
Charges dropped, then a civil suit
On 1 November 2001 every charge was dropped because the accuser refused to testify at the retrial. Defense attorney Paul F. Callan said he had witnesses, including former boyfriends, who could testify that Rzucek had been in SM relationships, and that she knew the lie would be exposed. Jovanovic later finished his microbiology doctorate with honors. About a month after the appeal went his way, he called Fairstein an opportunist profiting from her office and said she had wanted a high-profile case with an internet angle that was still new. In October 2004 he sued New York City for $10 million, alleging reputational harm from false accusations and claiming prosecutors knew of earlier false sexual-abuse claims. The suit named Linda Fairstein, by then a bestselling crime novelist. In 2009 he added a claim that Rzucek’s psychologist had taken part in sadomasochistic activity that could explain injuries police had seen. In September 2010 the civil case was dismissed.
What the file still gets used for
Because the two of them met online, coverage in that era of internet panic tagged the case “cyberfiend” and made it national news. The coverage carried a second anxiety as well: a stranger from a chat room staging extreme SM behind an apartment door. Jovanovic’s view was that a sex-crime case with a novel technology angle was exactly the high-profile mix the prosecutor wanted.
The appellate point was an evidence rule. It was not a finding that SM makes assault impossible. The Appellate Division said that when the defense is consensual SM, a complainant’s own writing about SM interest and history can matter. Keeping those emails out meant the first jury did not hear that vocabulary when it judged consent and credibility. For BDSM readers the file is difficult on purpose. It holds contested consent, a thin first-date negotiation, and after-the-fact email that can be read both ways. Teachers still cite two cautions. A “bruised but happy” message does not by itself prove legal consent for every act alleged. Hiding all evidence that a person knows kink can also distort a jury. People v. Jovanovic stayed in U.S. BDSM legal folklore as a reminder that email is both scene memory and a courtroom exhibit.
