Jury finds man guilty of rape, kidnapping

The jury deliberated for four hours before returning its verdict.
WARREN -- A jury has found Ernest L. Averiett III of Warren guilty of five counts of rape and one of kidnapping, for taking a 19-year-old Girard woman from an Eastwood Mall parking lot and raping her in an attic.
Averiett, 33, could receive up to 60 years in prison on the six charges, said David Toepfer, Trumbull County assistant prosecutor. His minimum sentence would be three years, he said.
Averiett is already serving a 26-year prison sentence at the Lorain Correctional Institution after being found guilty in January of abusing another woman with a hot iron.
The jury in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court returned its verdict late Tuesday to Judge W. Wyatt McKay, after four hours of deliberations. Averiett will be sentenced later, Toepfer added.
The prosecution said the assaults took place in the Eastwood Mall parking lot in 2003. Averiett was accused of punching the 19-year-old victim in the face, knocking her unconcious. When she awoke, she was in an attic, where Averiett raped her five times, the prosecution said.
DNA evidence proved that Averiett was the person who had sexual intercourse with the victim, Toepfer said.
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.