Homeless man guilty of felonious assault

The defense said the sex was consensual.

YOUNGSTOWN — A jury has acquitted a homeless man of one count of kidnapping and two counts of raping a homeless woman in a North Side apartment, but it convicted him of felonious assault against her.

Edward Washington, 46, was convicted of the single count of felonious assault by a seven-woman, five-man jury late Monday. The verdict came after more than three hours of deliberations at the end of a five-day trial before Judge Maureen A. Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

Washington could receive probation, or two to eight years in prison, when he is sentenced.

The 44-year-old woman told police she encountered Washington, whom she had met a month earlier on a church bus, at 1 a.m. March 24, 2006, as she walked alone on lower Belmont Avenue and accepted his offer of a warm place to sleep in the apartment where he was staying.

When they got to the Wick Park area apartment, she told police he punched and kicked her, beat her with a metal rod and a belt with a metal buckle and raped her repeatedly before letting her leave several hours later.

Washington testified the sex was consensual. His lawyer, John Jeffrey Limbian, told the jury the woman made the police report “as a pre-emptive move” because she had tried to steal Washington’s last $10. The only struggle was over that money, Limbian said.

“My client is not a rapist. He didn’t kidnap this lady,” Limbian said after the verdict was rendered. Concerning the felonious assault charge, Limbian observed that jurors inquired during their deliberations about the difference between assault and felonious assault.

“Given the fact that there weren’t substantial markings on the woman to suggest that there had been much of a struggle, my impression is that they were considering an assault ... Perhaps the jury thought that there should not have been a struggle,” Limbian said.

The jury foreman declined to explain the verdict to a reporter after the panel rendered its decision.

Natasha Frenchko, assistant county prosecutor, declined to comment on details of the case after the verdict came in.