URI Rape Case Defendant Testifies He Had Consentual Sex

Sexual assault in RI is characterized by the act of engaging in any sexual penetration using coercion or force, or if the victim is determined to be mentally disabled, physically helpless, or mentally incapacitated and the accused is aware of that fact. There are varying degrees of this charge, however they all carry with them a serious felony conviction if you are found guilty as a defendant.

The following article from the Providence Journal regarding a URI student who has claimed she was raped by another student is pertinent as a sexual assault matter.

Defendant in Sexual Assault Case Testifies that Woman Agreed to Sex

01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, July 28, 2010

By Michael P. McKinney

Journal Staff Writer

SOUTH KINGSTOWN — Yaw Peprah, one of two University of Rhode Island students on trial for alleged sexual assaults of a woman in a dorm, testified Tuesday that he asked twice that night if she wanted to have sex and that she indicated she did.

The testimony contradicted that of the woman who accuses Peprah and Estifanos Gizaw of separate sexual assaults between midnight and 2 a.m. on Sept. 14, 2008.

Peprah said that the night of Sept. 13 he met her at the party in the Wiley Hall dormitory and they engaged in small talk. And they talked about a difficult math class he was taking, said Peprah, of Lincoln, an engineering student at URI.

The woman, he said, brought marijuana to the dorm suite and she and a few others, including Peprah, went outside the dormitory to smoke a joint she had rolled. The woman said Peprah could take in some smoke by kissing her after she inhaled, Peprah testified, and he said he kissed her.

The group got calzones to take back to eat in the dorm suite. Under questioning by defense lawyer Roy Fowler, Peprah testified he and the woman “were kissing and touching” on an elevator to the third floor and in the dorm suite’s common room. Peprah testified he asked if she wanted to have sex, and she said that was OK.

Eventually, Peprah went into the bedroom with the woman and, he said, they sat on the bed, talking, kissing and touching. He said he asked again if she wanted to have sex and she indicated she did.

Fowler, Peprah’s lawyer, asked if another defense witness, Oluwadamilola Adewale, who goes by Henry, had said anything to Peprah that night and whether Peprah did anything as a result.

“It came to mind I should ask” the woman “a couple of times if it’s OK to have sex,” Peprah said. What Adewale told Peprah was not brought out before the jury.

Peprah said he and the woman took their clothes off, and she asked if he had a condom. He put on clothes and got a condom from Gizaw in the hallway and returned to the room, but the condom broke. The woman said a friend had given her a condom, Peprah testified, and he got it from her bag.

The woman said she was OK when, at one point, two other women knocked at the door and came in to see how she was doing, Peprah testified.

The Journal does not identify people who authorities say were victims of sexual assault.

mmckinne@projo.com
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