Thursday, April 23, 1998 | 10:01 a.m.
The would-be sexual assault victim who made a victim of her attacker told a judge how the 30 minute ordeal in 1996 "turned me from a confident woman into a scared and depressed girl."
Speaking at the sentencing hearing Wednesday for UNLV graduate student Scott Schwartz, the woman said that for months she constantly checked the doors and windows to make sure they were locked, slept with a knife next to her bed and thought of buying a pistol.
"I'll never be the same person I was before," said the 21-year-old victim. "Although I should hate him, I don't. I feel sorry for him."
The 1996 attack on the waitress, who worked at the time at a trendy restaurant on the Strip and lived in Schwartz's apartment complex, had ended when he fled in pain from her apartment after she severely bit his penis.
Schwartz, who already knew that his sentence would be five to 20 years in prison as a result of his plea bargain, sat unemotionally in District Judge John McGroarty's courtroom during the woman's emotional speech.
When it was his turn to speak, Schwartz apologized meekly and said he hopes someday to be forgiven.
While he had pleaded guilty to attempted sexual assault, Schwartz still tap danced around his responsibility for the knife-wielding attack on the woman that left her with cuts on both arms.
He blamed the incident on an apparent blackout from prescription pain killers and alcohol from a wine tasting he had attended.
But Deputy District Attorney Abbi Silver said that no alcohol was detected in Schwartz's blood three hours after the incident and she chastised him for his "sorry excuse." She accused him of stalking his victim and taking advantage of an unlocked door as the woman showered.
"He may look like an angel, but he's one evil man, evil to the core," Silver said.
Defense attorney Thomas Pitaro lamented that "it is difficult to put rationale or reason to this event" given Schwartz's successes as a student and university government leader.
Schwartz agreed to the plea bargain rather than face trial on sexual assault charges and face the possibility of a life prison sentence with no parole until he had served 20 years.
McGroarty noted that the deal, although it will keep him in prison only five years before eligibility for parole, "may have prevented additional harm to this victim."
Schwartz and attorney Thomas Pitaro had battled the case for nearly two years but the evidence mounted and the plea bargain meant the defendant would have a chance for freedom while he was still young.
Schwartz had been taken into custody after he pleaded guilty and he sat in court Wednesday in his jail uniform and shackles. At earlier court hearings, he dressed in a dark suit and tie that made him look every bit the part of the college achiever and future hotel executive he had worked to become.
Silver had labeled the dean's list student at UNLV's hotel administration college a "sexual predator" yet had conceded that "but for an aberration he would have been a productive member of society."
Because she was in the shower, the victim apparently didn't hear Schwartz enter her East Charleston Boulevard apartment until, disguised by a pair of her panties over his head, he pulled her from the bathroom and tried to force her to perform oral sex.
"She bit his penis so hard he couldn't do anything," Silver said at an earlier court hearing. "But for that fact, she could have been killed."
The victim said Wednesday she still can't relax while taking a shower.
A former police officer living in the apartment complex who heard the victim's screams tried unsuccessfully to apprehend the would-be rapist but did track the getaway car to an area by Schwartz's apartment. The engine was warm and there was blood on the steering wheel, he testified. The car belonged to Schwartz.
DNA tests on blood left in the victim's apartment by the attacker indicated it came from Schwartz.
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