From Victim to Suspect
Reveal
The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX
4.7 • 8K Ratings
🗓️ 11 March 2023
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Nicole Chase was a young mom with a daughter to support when she took a job at a local restaurant in Canton, Connecticut. She liked the work and was good at her job. But the place turned out to be more like a frat house than a quaint roadside sandwich spot. And the crude behavior kept escalating – until one day she says her boss went too far and she turned to the local police for help. What happened next would put a detective on the hot seat and lead to a legal battle that would drag on for years. The United States Supreme Court would even get involved.
Reveal reporter Rachel de Leon spent years taking a close look at cases across the country in which people reported sexual assaults to police, only to find themselves investigated. In this hour, we explore one case and hear how police interrogated an alleged perpetrator, an alleged victim and each other.
De Leon’s investigation is also the subject of a forthcoming documentary, “Victim/Suspect,” which debuts May 23 on Netflix.
Support Reveal’s journalism at Revealnews.org/donatenow
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get the scoop on new episodes at Revealnews.org/weekly
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From the Center for Investigative Reporting in PRX, this is Reveal. I'm Al Letson. |
| 0:07.0 | It's 2017. Allie Archer is in her early 20s and she's working at NoDine's restaurant. |
| 0:15.0 | Everybody seemed very relaxed and everybody was pretty easy to get along with. It seemed like fun at first. |
| 0:22.0 | NoDine's is in a town called Canton, Connecticut, just outside of Hartford. |
| 0:26.0 | It's definitely a well-known name around the town. It seems like everybody knows NoDine's meat. |
| 0:32.0 | Since the late 60s, the NoDine family has been curing and smoking meats in the foothills of the Berkshears. |
| 0:39.0 | Ronald NoDine started the business. The restaurant is a new venture which opened in 2016, |
| 0:45.0 | a couple years before Ronald passed away. His son Calvin runs this small spot off the side of the road |
| 0:51.0 | with woodpan and walls and plaid curtains. While the decor may be kitschy country in, |
| 0:57.0 | the vibe is more frat house. Allie says Calvin stashes beer in the back freezer and drinks on the job. |
| 1:04.0 | She remembers one day in particular. |
| 1:07.0 | He was walking around barefoot without his shoes on and he was drinking alcohol in front of all the customers. |
| 1:14.0 | And it showed up on one of our Yelp Reviews. |
| 1:18.0 | We found that review. It says, very inconsistent, owner can be seen randomly wandering in his socks with a beer in hand. |
| 1:28.0 | Several employees at NoDine's are related to Calvin. His wife helps him run the place. His stepson is the head chef. |
| 1:35.0 | Allie is even a distant relative. She says Calvin tells dirty jokes about women, about blondes, |
| 1:42.0 | and soon NoDine's goes from being fun and relaxed to toxic and chaotic. |
| 1:47.0 | I didn't feel safe being around Calvin. |
| 1:50.0 | And then one day, Allie says Calvin's been drinking all day and crosses the line from being crude and offensive |
| 1:57.0 | to getting physical with her friend and coworker Nicole Chase. |
| 2:01.0 | This time, he actually came up behind her and put his arm around her. |
| 2:06.0 | Nicole, like Allie, is in her 20s, but she's not a part of the NoDine family. |
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