Opinion ID: 1495306
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Second Rape

Text: Portia Mills, the victim of the second rape, was at that time an employee of the Narcotics Treatment Administration at D. C. General Hospital. On June 12, 1973, Miss Mills participated in a work Group Session during which she experienced difficulty with some of her co-workers. Appellant, also an employee of the agency, was present and after the session he expressed sympathetic concern and his desire to counsel with her. Miss Mills had never socialized with appellant but because of his expressed interest in her work she invited him to her home for the discussion. Appellant declined and suggested that they talk in his automobile, a light blue Volkswagen. Appellant drove around for a while and at the insistence of Miss Mills he stopped the car at a small park near her home and continued the conversation while seated on a park bench near the street. Sometime later appellant went to his car and got a dark robe which he spread on the grass saying it would be much more comfortable than the bench. Miss Mills agreed and sat with him on the robe as they continued their conversation about her work. According to her testimony the following then transpired: All of a sudden he just changed from the rational person that was talking to me before that had talked to me all evening . . . and said one or two things about wanting me, and all of this kind of stuff. Miss Mills requested that he take her home. Appellant refused and told her that the real reason he had wanted to see her after work was to beat her for something she had done to him. He stated that her good friend had told him all about it and that he started to kill her, the complainant, the previous Saturday but changed his mind. Threatening her with assault and death, appellant demanded that she take off her underpants. She refused and appellant took off his belt and holding it in a threatening manner repeated his demand that she take off her pants. When she continued to say no appellant jumped on her and began to choke her saying that if she screamed he would kill her. Miss Mills, scared to death and convinced that he meant business, submitted to sexual intercourse. She was then returned to her home, but was so disturbed that she sat for a while on her front porch rather than risk having her young niece discover, from her agitated condition, what had happened. On the following day Miss Mills, still agitated, informed both her attorney and a close friend of the incident. Later that day her attorney accompanied her to a police precinct station to report the rape, and she was later taken to D. C. General Hospital where an examination of the cervical area disclosed the presence of spermatozoa. An examination of her underpants by an F.B.I. expert disclosed a semen stain. Miss Mills identified appellant as her assailant, identified the light blue Volkswagen which he was driving, and identified also the car robe on which she was raped. Both Miss Mills' attorney and her friend corroborated her initial account of the facts and circumstances surrounding the incident. Before the close of the government's case, a police officer identified photographs of the interior and exterior of appellant's light blue Volkswagen, depicting a black interior and a dark colored robe on the rear seat.