Accuser testifies in rape trial

The dancer said she had
trusted and felt sorry for the accused.

By TIM YOVICH

VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF

WARREN — A man accused of raping an exotic dancer once tried to give the woman $10,000 for a dance and sex, she has testified.

Jeffrey L. Town’s accuser testified Wednesday in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court that he had asked her for a private dance.

When Town indicated it included sex, she responded, “I’m not a prostitute.”

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

The prosecution says the charges stem from a Dec. 11, 2006, encounter in Town’s Newton Falls apartment when the dancer was 20.

During questioning by David Toepfer, an assistant county prosecutor, and cross-examination by Atty. John B. Juhasz, the dancer told a story of Town’s strong affection for her, but she termed him only a friend.

The high-school dropout testified that she and Town met in the summer of 2006 when she was dancing at Chaser’s, a Rootstown club.

Initially, he paid her $100 to $150 to talk with him and not dance. Later, she began dancing at Club 76 in Austintown and he would visit her, she testified.

Later, she told the jury, he tried to get her another job and a baby sitter for her daughter. He would take her out to dinner and pay her between $400 and $500 to sit with him and talk.

Town, the dancer said, told her that he had cancer, didn’t want treatment and wanted to be killed during an assisted suicide.

“I felt sorry for him,” she said.

Went to apartment

On Dec. 11, 2006, the dancer said, she went to his apartment to make a payment on an older car he had sold her and to help him clean his apartment.

Once inside the apartment, she testified, she was attacked by Town from behind. He had a knife. He duct-taped her wrists and forced to the floor. After she told him she wouldn’t call the police, he removed her clothing and the tape and sexually assaulted her.

After putting her clothes back on, she fled the apartment, got into her car and drove away. She didn’t call the police because she was frightened, she testified.

“I feel so stupid now. I trusted him. I didn’t think this would happen,” the dancer said.

Town is being held in the county jail in lieu of a $170,000 bond. Still, she testified, she wouldn’t disclose where she is now dancing because she remains frightened and doesn’t want him to know where she works.

yovich@vindy.com