She was a middle-aged Norwegian woman who had looked forward to her Virgin Islands vacation for years.

She read and reread travel brochures touting the quiet charm of St. Croix -- its historic sites, white sand beaches and friendly people.

In the first four days of her vacation she came to appreciate why the Virgin Islands is called the American Paradise.

On the fifth day, Feb. 2, 1991, it became a hell.

As she was sunbathing on the beach at the Buccaneer Hotel, a youth suddenly appeared and threatened her with a knife. She offered him money not to hurt her, police say.

Three typical deals

ANTONIO GEORGE

Charged: Rape, unlawful sexual contact and 1st-degree assault
Possible sentence: 30 years
Plea bargain: Aggravated assault
He got: 3 years probation

LOUIS BESS

Charged: Murder (1st degree) with dangerous weapon
Possible sentence: Life in prison
Plea bargain: Voluntary manslaughter
He got: 10 years in prison

GARY FOX JR.

Charged: Murder (2nd degree)
Possible sentence: 30 years
Plea bargain: Volutary manslaughter
He got: 5 years in prison

The youth, Raphael "Sound Boy" Joseph, took the money and a diamond ring the woman held out to him.

Then he raped her.

A few hours later, he was trying to sell the ring in Gallows Bay.

That was not the 16-year-old's first rape, not by a long shot, police say.

A year earlier, police had arrested Joseph for raping or sexually assaulting at least three women. They had witnesses and a strong case.

Joseph even told police that he had sexually assaulted 12 other women.

But Joseph was never tried.

Assistant Attorney General Edward Ennis, who handled the case, filed the wrong charges.

The case was dismissed.

Such mistakes are commonplace in the Attorney General's Office, now the territory's primary prosecuting agency.

Prosecutors in that office fail to file briefs, they show up for trial unprepared, and they file the wrong papers.

The screw-ups have cost the Justice Department hundreds of convictions in recent years and have allowed many violent criminals to go free.

A review of Territorial Court records since 1990 reveals:

• One in every two cases handled by the Attorney General's Office is dismissed before it goes to trial.
• 81 percent of all convictions come from plea bargains to lesser charges.
• Hundreds of cases have been lost because the Attorney General's Office has no system for keeping track of cases and ensuring the cases are properly prepared for trial. The office is now creating a system, Attorney General Rosalie Ballentine says.
• One-third of all Territorial Court cases in the last five years were dismissed because witnesses or defendants left the territory and the Attorney General's Office didn't have the money to transport them back.
• Cases were dismissed because the department did not have enough clerical staff available to type the briefs.
• Because of poor planning and office administration, prosecutors don't find out they are handling a case until just a day or so before they have to take it to trial; often those are cases that have been under investigation for months, even years, but the prosecutor has no chance to become fully familiar with the case facts and details.
• The Attorney General's Office cannot attract highly qualified prosecutors because salaries for assistant attorneys general average about $35,000 -- among the lowest in the nation for prosecutors and far lower than lawyers in private practice average here.
• For years the assistant attorney general's first chance to interview arresting officers and investigators -- usually key witnesses -- was minutes before the trial began.
• The attorney general, the territory's No. 1 prosecutor, has never prosecuted a criminal case herself. She says she handled some in a lawyers' classroom clinic in New York.

All too often, the Attorney General's Office stumbles over the little things, like paperwork.

That's what happened in the case of convicted rapist David Eddie. Eddie was released on parole -- even though Gov. Alexander A. Farrelly denied his parole request and the Attorney General's Office says he belongs behind bars.

THE COURTHOUSE -- The Alexander A. Farrelly Justice Center on St. Thomas, the site of Territorial court offices and courtrooms.

But Eddie is a free man because the Attorney General's Office failed to tell Eddie and a District Court judge that his parole request had been denied. They had 60 days to tell Eddie and an additional 25 days to tell the judge.

They missed both deadlines and Eddie walked.

Eddie had served 12 years of his 17-year sentence for rape. The Parole Board had approved Eddie's release, but the governor, who had the final say and who had denied similar requests from Eddie before, turned it down.

But nobody told Eddie what the governor did. And since the Parole Board's decision goes into effect in 60 days unless the governor vetoes it, Eddie was sure his parole had been granted.

And when Eddie went to court to win his release, Magistrate Judge Jeffrey Resnick gave the Attorney General's Office 10 days to respond. But 25 days later, when Chief District Court Judge Thomas Moore ordered Eddie released, the Attorney General's office still had not responded.

By the time the Attorney General's Office got around to filing a motion to stop Eddie's release, it was too late.

He was out.

Such inattention and oversights in the Attorney General's Office can have deadly consequences, as in the murder of Donna Gaskin.

Gaskin, who had a long history of abuse at the hands of her husband, Alfredo, filed several complaints with the Attorney General's Office and with the police. She begged them to do something about him.

They did nothing.

Donna Gaskin tried to save herself. She divorced her husband in September 1984 and moved herself and her children away from him.

One month later, she was sitting in her living room watching television. She had just finished dinner and her two daughters -- ages 9 and 12 -- were playing in their bedroom when Alfredo Gaskin stuck a shotgun through the living room window and blew a hole in her side. She died there on the floor.

Gaskin, 50, a former fireman, was convicted of his wife's murder and sentenced to 35 years in prison. St. Croix Women's Coalition co-director Clema Lewis says Donna Gaskin would be alive today if the Attorney General's Office had responded.

Ballentine, who has been attorney general for three years, says her office is moving to correct such problems and improve prosecution.

She says results are visible. Under expanded jurisdiction -- On Jan. 1, 1994, her office took over the prosecution of all violent crimes -- her office hasn't lost a murder case.

Critics of the Attorney General's Office say a big part of the problem is the way staff is managed. For example, under Ballentine's policy prosecutors are assigned to specific judges. But attorneys familiar with the Attorney General's Office say it is an inefficient and destructive policy.

"The problem with that idea is that often an attorney would handle a case for months before it goes to trial and then discover it's assigned to a judge he or she isn't assigned to," says former Assistant Attorney General Valerie Callanton.

"So an attorney with no knowledge of the case is handed the files, sometimes days before the case goes to trial."

The result is usually a dismissal or a generous plea bargain.