Victim In Rape Case Goes Public

STAMFORD, Conn. - For the past 11 years, she has been known as "the alleged victim" and "the accuser" - the woman who said Alex Kelly raped her.

Now, strengthened by a jury's guilty verdict, she wants the world to know her name. She is Adrienne Bak Ortolano. At 27, she has waited nearly half her life for justice.

And when she heard the foreman of the jury that last week convicted Kelly of raping her say "guilty," she cried.

"The first thing I thought was, thank God, thank God the world knows the truth," she said yesterday in one of the first interviews she has granted since Kelly was convicted last week.

For years, she thought she might never hear that word.

Adrienne Bak was a freckle-faced, 16-year-old virgin when she accepted a ride home from Kelly after a party on the night of Feb. 10, 1986. Kelly, then 18, was the handsome co-captain of the Darien High School wrestling team.

About 30 minutes after they left, she burst into her home and told her family that Kelly had just choked and raped her in a borrowed Jeep. She said he threatened to rape her again and kill her if she told anyone.

It was a story she would repeat during the next 11 years - to the police, to prosecutors, to lawyers, to therapists, and then, to two separate juries.

"The worst moment of my life was being raped by Alex Kelly," she said. ". . . I felt violated. I felt hurt and scared."

Kelly, free on bail while he awaits sentencing next month, could not be reached for comment. His lawyer did not return calls.

Now 30, Kelly fled to Europe in 1987 after he was charged in Bak's rape and a second rape - four days later - of a 17-year-old Stamford girl. He was on the run for eight years, living what authorities would later describe as a ski bum's lifestyle financed by his wealthy parents.

While Kelly traveled across Europe, Adrienne Bak says, she was struggling to get on with her life. She eventually earned a degree in communications from Northeastern University and later married Chris Ortolano, a sales representative. She now works as a pharmaceutical sales representative, and the couple lives in New Jersey.

"I had an obligation to myself to not allow this to become my life," she said of the case. "It was very frustrating for a long time. It was difficult to move on."

In 1994, authorities raided the Darien home of Kelly's parents and found letters that helped them narrow his whereabouts. Bak also hired a lawyer to help find Kelly, who eventually surrendered in Switzerland.

She says the pain and frustration of the last 11 years will be worthwhile if it helps persuade other women who have been raped to come forward.

"It's a positive feeling to be able to stand up and accuse your attacker, and to tell the truth the way it happened," she said.