Less than two weeks into her freshman year at Boston University, Alexa Branchini went to the bathroom for a drink of water. Her life changed forever when a man’s arm pushed the shower curtain aside, a knife clenched in his fist.
After an emotionally difficult trial, Abdelmajid Akouk, 33, was convicted of raping Branchini in the shower stall in Emmanuel College’s Loretto Hall, a BU-rented dorm for overflow students, and again on her dorm room floor in September 1999, threatening to kill her and her roommate if either of them made a noise, Branchini’s mother, Stacey Branchini, said in a written statement.
“We sat outside the courtroom as the defense attorney screamed at [Alexa] for . . . two days, accusing her of lying and the police of planting evidence,” Stacey said in the statement.
To help other families attend out-of-town trials, Alexa’s parents created the It Happened to Alexa Foundation four years ago, which is now one of 40 semi-finalists in the Sixth Annual Volvo For Life Awards, a campaign launched by Volvo that grants winners up to $100,000 to donate to promote their causes.
Branchini and her family endured a month-long trial away from their home in Lewiston, N.Y., during which Akouk’s defense postponed the trial, accused Branchini of lying and barred her parents from the trial during her testimony by putting them on their witness list. During this time, the family had to pay for flights, meals, lodging and caretakers for Branchini’s sister and grandmother while Branchini’s father was forced to take a leave of absence from his job.
The foundation has provided about 300 families with up to $3,000 each to pay for expenses associated with attending out-of-town trials, said Ellen Augello, IHTAF executive director.
Akouk was ultimately convicted by a Suffolk Superior Court jury on two counts of aggravated rape and sentenced to 40 to 45 years in prison, according to a Jan. 27, 2001 Boston Herald article.
Of rape cases that go to trial only 6 percent result in conviction, Stacey Branchini said. The conviction rate is elevated to 80 percent when the IHTAF provides support for families attending trials.
“In most cases, the attacker will be in the room,” she said. “If [the victim’s] family is not in the room, [the victim] will tend to waver.”
IHTAF helps victims of all ages, Augello said, but most beneficiaries are college-age students, because they are at a statistically higher risk for rape than the general population.
Upon her daughter’s release from Brigham and Women’s Hospital following the assault, two police officers dropped her off at a BU-affiliated Holiday Inn, Branchini said. Without money, identification or a cell phone, however, security officials refused to let her into the building for 20 minutes.
Though the university was “completely oblivious” to what happened to her daughter after she was released from the hospital, Branchini said the BU Police Department detectives went “above and beyond,” treating Alexa Branchini as if “she was their own daughter.”
The Branchinis settled in a civil suit against BU after the rape trial was over in 2001.
Alexa Branchini is currently taking courses online and will receive her master’s degree in criminal justice from BU in May, though she finished her undergraduate education at The State University of New York at Buffalo. She now works for Child Advocate Services in Georgia.
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