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By
Bersabel Ephrem [former]
- January 31, 2023
Court
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A difficult to lock door, at street level, was shared through witness testimony on the first day of arguments in a sex abuse trial.
The case, which had been unsolved for years, involved a 47-year-old defendant who is charged with first-degree burglary, kidnapping, assault with intent to commit first-degree sexual abuse with force, robbery, and two counts of first-degree sexual abuse while threatening the victim in connection to a sex assault on June 12, 2010, on the 1700 block of Lanier Place NW. The defendant was apprehended on March 8, 2019.
On Jan. 30, a prosecutor called the manager of the apartment building where the incident took place to the stand.
The manager told the jury that the victim was his tenant for 15 years. He also said there were two ways into the victims apartment, the main entrance and another one at street level.
However, the door lock for the entrance at street level was difficult to lock, the witness continued.
A journalist who worked with the victim at the time of the crime said he was concerned when the victim went home late because Saturdays at work are typically the longest and busiest.
He said she told him about her encounter with the cops and what happened the morning after the assault when she arrived at work.
“I offered to stay on her couch that night, and she took me up on that offer,” he said.
A public defense trial lawyer, who had known the victim personally for more than ten years at the time of the offense, said the victim called him and told him about the incident.
She admitted that she had gone out the night before and had come home around 2 a.m. to get ready for bed, he said.
That’s when she saw a man, either fully or partially nude, standing beside her bed. Before the attack started, she said there was a battle, he continued.
When the victim called, she reportedly seemed disturbed, he said.
The trial is scheduled to resume on Jan. 31.