STAMFORD, June 21: 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 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 convicted the former High School wrestling star last week of raping her say ``Guilty,'' she cried.

``The first thing I thought was, thank God, thank God the world knows the truth,'' she said on Thursday 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 student when she accepted a ride home from Kelly after a party on the night of February 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 saying Kelly had raped her in a borrowed jeep. She told her family he choked her, forced her into the vehicle's cargo area, raped her and threatened to rape her again and kill her if she told anyone.

It was a story she would repeat over and over 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 defeated. I felt taken advantage of. I felt violated. I felt hurt and scared,'' she said.

Kelly, free on bail while he awaits sentencing next month, has an unlisted telephone number and could not be reached for comment. His lawyer did not return several messages left by the AP.

Now 30, Kelly fled to Europe in 1987 after he was charged in of Adrienne'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 travelled across Europe, Adrienne Bak says she was struggling to get on with her life. She eventually earned a degree and has now moved to a town in New Jersey, the name of which she refused to disclose. In 1994, after Kelly had been gone seven years, authorities raided his parents' Darien home and found letters from him that helped them narrow his whereabouts. Bak also hired a lawyer to help find Kelly, who eventually surrendered in Switzerland.

When the first trial ended in a mistrial, she felt devastated. ``I felt helpless. I thought, I had done everything humanly possible and it wasn't enough. I kept asking myself, why don't they see the obvious truth?'' she said. 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.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.