Conviction Obtained After Long Forgotten Rape Kit Tested

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SOUTHFIELD, MI – A Detroit convicted in a 2008 attack and rape of a Southfield woman after thousands of forgotten rape kits were tested for DNA evidence will be sentenced in Oakland County Circuit Court next month.

Donnell Broadnax, 56, of Detroit, was convicted earlier this month of one count of first-degree criminal sexual conduct for knocking an 18-year-old woman unconscious and raping her nearly a decade ago at a Southfield home.

His sentencing is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. Monday, May 9, before Oakland County Circuit Judge Patrick O’Brien.

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, whose office prosecuted the case, will ask that Broadnax be sentenced as a habitual offender under the state’s Violent Offense-Fourth Felony (VO-4) law, which allows prosecutors to require a minimum 25-year sentence for certain repeat offenders who have committed four felonies while progressing to more violent crimes.

Broadnax’s arrest last fall came after about 10,000 of the more than 11,000 sexual assault kits found abandoned in a police storage unit in 2009 — some of them decades old — were tested.

“This conviction is long overdue and much deserved justice for the victim in this case,” Schuette said in the statement.

The case was the first the attorney general’s office has received as a result of ongoing investigations by Wayne County Sexual Assault Kit Task Force.

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy referred the case to the attorney general’s office because the assault took place outside of Wayne County.

In 2009, the more than 11,000 untested sexual assault kits, some dating back more than 30 years were discovered in a Detroit Police Department property storage facility, each holding the potential to solve multiple crimes, including those committed by serial rapists.