Falls man on trial in rape of exotic dancer

The defendant’s defense
says the two had agreed
to have sex.

By TIM YOVICH

VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF

WARREN — A jury in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court began hearing testimony Tuesday in the case of a man accused of raping an exotic dancer with whom he became enamored.

Jeffrey L. Town, 48, of Newton Falls, is on trial in the courtroom of Judge Peter J. Kontos on charges of kidnapping, gross sexual imposition and rape.

Town’s defense maintains the two had consensual sex.

During opening statements, David Toepfer, an assistant county prosecutor, told the jury of seven men and five women that Town and the 20-year-old woman met at Chaser’s, a Rootstown club where she danced.

The single mother of one had taken up entertaining men rather than accepting public assistance, Toepfer told the jury.

He said that the two would spend time together at Chaser’s and that he would pay her not to dance, to spend more time with him at the club.

Town told others that he was in love with the Newton Falls dancer, Toepfer said, and that he had given her an older car to use.

Went to Town’s apartment

On Dec. 11, 2006, the prosecutor told the jury, the dancer went to Town’s Newton Falls apartment to help clean it.

Once inside, he asserted, Town grabbed her around the mouth from behind, forced her to the floor, tied her wrists with duct tape and stabbed her in the hand with a knife.

He told her that he would let her leave if she had sex with him. After removing the tape, Toepfer said, they had sex. Afterward, she fled in the car.

Defense attorney John Juhasz countered that the woman was concerned when she went into Town’s apartment — because she had abused using his car, and feared he would take it from her.

Juhasz asserted that she was yelling, screaming and kicking at Town and he tried to calm her; they then had consensual sex.

Tamya Bier of Newton Falls, who danced with the woman at both Chaser’s and Club 76 in Austintown, testified that Town told her he was in love with the dancer and that he would do anything for her.

After her encounter with Town, Bier said the fellow dancer went to her residence. “She said that Jeff had raped her,” she told the court.

Bier, along with the woman’s mother and brother, testified that she was “hysterical” and frightened of being killed by Town.

Town remains in the county jail in lieu of a $170,000 bond.

yovich@vindy.com