"We have to go back to her and admit those mistakes, and apologize to her and go from there," Richard Little, university spokesman, said Tuesday.

Little said the university could face financial penalties for failing to provide written notice to a 20-year-old woman whom Jason Landis, 25, was convicted of sexually attacking in her dorm room last year.

The woman says university officials had declared Landis barred from campus until 2005. She found out Landis was back at Miami only after she heard about a woman reporting he had raped her last week.

That 22-year-old woman underwent surgery and now is recovering at home, officials said.

The 2003 victim, now attending another college, said she made care-free social visits to Miami University recently, unaware that Landis was allowed back.

"It's terrifying," she said, to think that he could have been anywhere near her. "I don't even know what I would have done if I ran into him."

Landis, 25, of Troy, pleaded guilty in November 2003 to misdemeanor charges of sexual imposition and aggravated trespass after entering the woman's dorm room while she slept and fondling her. The woman said he was a stranger to her.

Landis is being held in the Butler County Jail on rape charges. His lawyer, Jon Paul Rion, did not return a telephone message. University officials said Landis is no longer a student at Miami and that federal privacy laws prohibit them from providing more information.

Miami officials are reviewing cases to see whether this case represents a one-time administrative glitch or whether officials previously failed to properly inform other sex-crime victims, Little said. Federal law sets requirements for colleges and universities to disclose information about campus crime and security policies.

Daniel Carter, vice president of Security On Campus Inc., said his organization is considering asking the federal Department of Education to investigate whether Miami is complying with a 1997 agreement. After being found in violation of federal law, the university pledged to provide - to accusers and accused - written final results of student disciplinary action in all sexual-assault cases, Carter said.

"If this is still a systemic problem, we're extremely upset," said Carter, whose national nonprofit group is dedicated to improving college students' safety. "The (U.S.) Department of Education gave them ample opportunity to resolve this seven years ago. We're concerned that it was actually never corrected."

Providing notices protects victims - and helps prevent conflicts such as the one involving the notice to the dorm-room victim, he said.

A tape recording of a hearing last fall says Landis was being suspended from campus until 2005, but a document that officials gave Landis lifted his suspension in August 2004, Little said. That document also should have been given to the woman who reported the attack, Little said, but "we have no record of that letter ever being sent (to her)."

Little blamed "a simple slip of the tongue" for the discrepancy in dates and said the more egregious error was in failing to provide the written document to the woman.

"You want to say that it's a mistake, but we were told 2005 twice'' during the hearing, the 2003 victim said. "I don't know whether I was lied to or whether it was a misunderstanding."

Carter said Landis' penalty might have been changed - or that the victim was misled. Either, he said, is a violation of federal law.

Meanwhile, university spokeswoman Claire Wagner said Miami officials "are reviewing several years of disciplinary cases on sexual assaults to see if the actions taken in this case were consistent with long-term practices."

Jane Goettsch, director of the Miami Women's Center, said there has been a lot of talk on campus about the case.

"I think this incident prompts us to look at how we do business, to look at our policies and see that we're doing everything as well as we can. I don't think it's possible to eradicate crime," she said. "I'm not sure that anyone has that magic answer that makes it all go away."

---

E-mail jmorse@enquirer.com