TRUMBULL COUNTY COURT Woman's credibility scrutinized in rape trial's closing arguments

The prosecutor said the victim had abrasions that would not have come from consensual sex.
By ED RUNYAN
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- Closing arguments in the trial of a Warren man accused of kidnapping a 19-year-old woman from the Eastwood Mall parking lot and raping her in 2003 focused on the woman's credibility.
Ernest L. Averiett III, 33, is serving a 26-year prison sentence at Lorain Correctional Institution after being found guilty in January of abusing a woman with a hot iron. He is now on trial in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court on five counts of rape and one of kidnapping of a different woman.
The jury began its deliberations Tuesday in the courtroom of Judge W. Wyatt McKay. Another jury earlier in a trial that began Aug. 15 was dismissed when it could not reach a verdict in the same case.
Also, in yet a third case, which began Aug. 22, Averiett was found innocent of kidnapping and rape. He was accused of forcing his way into the car of a woman in the Warren Police Department parking lot and raping her in 2002.
Defense
Tuesday, defense attorney Brendan J. Keating of Warren told the jury that the woman's story doesn't add up. That's because she told police she was punched in the face and knocked unconscious by her assailant -- and yet didn't have any marks on her face to back it up.
"Look at the pictures when you go back and look at her face," Keating said. "Listen to the doctor [during testimony] who said it is possible but not probable that this woman was punched in the jaw and it didn't leave marks."
He also asked the jury as to how it can believe the Girard woman's car ended up parked behind Averiett's car on the day of the crime, when she told police she was taken from the Eastwood Mall parking lot in Averiett's car -- unconscious -- to an attic in Warren and raped.
Keating said he also found it difficult to believe the woman was carried "down Charles Street, across Youngstown Road and up four flights of stairs" to the rape scene without being seen by witnesses.
Prosecution
David Toepfer, an assistant county prosecutor, told the jurors the defense strategy is one thing: to call the woman a liar.
He said no evidence was presented saying the woman was untrustworthy. Toepfer said certain parts of the case that seem hard to believe should still be believed because, "Every day, you hear stories ... that you might find unbelievable."
"DNA evidence proves he is the person who had sexual contact with the victim," Toepfer said, saying Averiett punched the woman in the face in the parking lot after she left Kahunaville, a restaurant and bar in the mall.
When she woke up, she was somewhere else, he said. Once Averiett and the woman were in the attic, he "put something to her head making her think he had a gun," put a "choke hold" on her and raped her five times, he said.
The prosecutor added the woman had a cut knee and lip and abrasions along her spine. "That's not happening during consensual sex," he said.
Toepfer also addressed questions regarding the woman's decision to wait until the next day to go to the hospital to report the assaults. Instead of going to police, she told two friends about it and went later. He explained these decisions in light of her immaturity, bad advice from friends, and reluctance to put herself through an examination at the hospital and a trial.
Finally, Toepfer said the woman had no reason to accuse Averiett of a crime if it were not true. "She has no reason whatsoever to lie," he said.
runyan@vindy.com