NEEDHAM (MA)
WCVB - ABC 5 [Boston MA]
May 7, 2026
By Mike Beaudet
Victim is sharing her story after state law forced prosecutors to drop her case
It was a night of terror more than 20 years ago.
“He kept stabbing me. And as I’m trying to hold my neck and get out of the car, he stabbed me all down my back,” she said. “And that’s when I started praying.”
In an interview, the Massachusetts woman recalled her harrowing escape from a rapist in 2005.
5 Investigates is not revealing her identity because she’s a survivor of sexual assault. Two decades later, she still has scars, both emotional and physical.
She met the man who caused the scars while trying to get a ride from Boston to Malden.
“When he said, sure, I’ll give you a ride, I was like, all right, get in? Yeah, get in. So I got in,” she said.
On the drive, she says they discussed sex and money.
“As I said ‘No’ over and over, something changed inside him. He started getting mad,” she said. “Driving so fast and turning so fast over and over and over and over that I didn’t know where I was anymore.”
He pulled over.
“And that’s when he got real ugly with me,” she said. “I remember him saying, ‘Get in the back!’ Over and over. ‘Get in the back, get in the back, get in the back.'”
“And that’s when the rape happened.”
She eventually escaped the car, but only after stabbed her multiple times.
“And he kept stabbing me. And as, as I’m trying to hold my neck and get out of the car, he stabbed me all down my back,” she said.
The big break in the case came in 2022.
Investigators matched DNA collected from a sexual assault examination after the woman’s rape to a man they identified as Ivan Cheung. At the time, he was working as a vice president at a Boston bank.
Prosecutors charged him with raping four women dating back to 2003.
DNA tied him to two of the attacks, but both cases, including hers, were dropped because of a 15-year statute of limitations on prosecuting rape cases. The other cases against him were dropped as well for other reasons.
Cheung denies he raped anyone and has not been convicted of any crimes. Cheung and his attorney did not respond to numerous requests for comment.
News that the prosecutors were dropping charges in her case caused “a drop of my heart,” she said.
“I did shed some tears, like gentle tears of just saying, ‘Wow.'”
Her case is a stark contrast with the March conviction of Stephen Paul Gale for the 1989 rape and kidnapping of two female employees in a Framingham clothing store.
The statute of limitations didn’t affect that prosecution only because Gale lived out of Massachusetts after that crime.
Survivors from both cases testified on Beacon Hill in support of a bill that would eliminate the statute of limitations on rape cases when DNA ties the suspect to the crime.
This is the third legislative session State Rep. Adam Scanlon, D-North Attleboro, has filed the bill and he says he’s hopeful it will finally pass this year.
Thirty-five other states have either eliminated the statute of limitations when there’s DNA evidence or removed the statute of limitations altogether for felony sex crimes.
“What do you say to her about why Massachusetts is lagging behind on this issue?” he was asked.
“Without her voice, we wouldn’t have even gotten this far,” Scanlon replied.
Gov. Maura Healey and the House included language in their budgets that would eliminate the statute of limitations in rape cases when there’s DNA evidence. That language is also in the Senate budget that the full Senate will vote on later this month.
Passing that measure is why the woman who survived the 2005 attack is speaking out.
“It’s harder and harder to prosecute a case the longer you wait. But I definitely want Massachusetts to extend their statutes for situations like mine,” she said.