In the Supreme Court of Justice Adolph Lucas this week, a jury is hearing testimonies in a case involving three men who are on trial for allegedly raping a 17-year-old high school student in 2005.
Attorney Kevin Arthurs is defending Roman Petzold, while Carlo Mason is defending Albert Foreman. The third man, Francis Lopez, is unrepresented by an attorney. The men are each facing one count of rape, after the victim gave a statement to police about the incident, some two weeks after the alleged sexual violation occurred.
On the morning of March 13, 2005, the girl was on her way to school, but she could not get onboard an overcrowded Belama bus, so she stayed at the bus stop awaiting another bus. According to the account, during that time, the girl briefly chatted with a young man who was also a student who subsequently departed and headed to school.
During the course of the conversation, the girl had mentioned that she was tired of school. Sometime after that another young man who was acquainted with the girl approached, and they began conversing. They had moved away from the bus stop and were standing in front of a yard, where a group of men were smoking marijuana, the victim recounted in her statement to the police.
The young man, who had told her that he was tired of working, then invited the student, who was dressed in her school uniform, into a house. While inside the house, they continued conversing. He offered her a drink, then left the house and went to a nearby store, where he bought two bottles of stout for himself and a bottle of beer for her. When he returned to the house, the girl reportedly took just a few sips of the beer, but found it to be bitter, and so left the rest untouched.
The conversation then turned to sex, she said. She told police that she agreed to have sex with this young man. And they did.
But after they had had intercourse, another young man appeared and entered the room. The man, who she identified in her report as “Pancho”, took her uniform from her and told her that he, too, wanted to have sex with her.
This “Pancho”, whose real name is Francis Lopez, one of the accused men, allegedly told the student that there was a bunch of guys outside who were waiting to have sex with her. They struggled for awhile, but eventually he overpowered her and raped her.
But, according to the girl’s report, she was still unable to leave after she was raped, because her school uniform was no longer in the room. It had been thrown outside, and “Pancho” informed her that there were other persons outside waiting to have sex with her.
The friend that she had consensual sex with had abandoned her, after he had let Pancho into the room and told her that he (Pancho) only wanted to talk to her.
According to the girl’s account, when Pancho was finished, another man she knows as “Bino” (whose real name is Albert Foreman) entered the room and offered to return her school uniform to her if she had sex with him. She agreed to his proposition. But after he was finished, Foreman reneged on his promise to return her uniform, and instead let another man, Roman Petzold, into the room.
Although, according to the young girl’s report, she was tired and in pain, Petzold requested sex, and when she refused, he forcibly removed her underwear. The girl alleges that Petzold then proceeded to pin her to the bed while he put on a condom, then raped her
Her homeroom teacher also took the witness stand and testified that that student had told her that she was raped by three men.
The teacher had asked her whether she had screamed. The student/victim said that she had tried to scream, but there was loud music playing.
The girl’s teacher testified that the girl was able to leave when one of the men finally felt sorry for her and eventually gave her back her uniform.
The mother of the girl also testified in court. But she became extremely emotional, and the hearing had to be adjourned until she could regain her composure.
Sergeant Carla Gamboa testified that the mother and daughter had gone to the domestic violence unit of the Police Department to report the rapes.
Gamboa told the court that she conducted an interview with the girl and learned that the rape incidents that they had come to report to the police had occurred twelve days before the report was made.
Acting on the girl’s report, police eventually arrested the three accused men and held identification parades, where they were positively identified by the virtual complainant.