Warren man, 56, convicted of rape

He will be sentenced later and could get more than 21 years in prison.

By ED RUNYAN

VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF

WARREN — A man tried for rape, kidnapping and auto theft — who caused a stir several times this week — sat quietly and didn’t react when jurors rendered three guilty verdicts in the case Friday afternoon.

After deliberating seven hours, the jury said Richard Hadden, 56, of Dover Street Southwest is guilty of raping and kidnapping a woman in her South Street home on May 2, 2006, and stealing her car afterward.

Hadden had begun talking quietly to adeputy sheriff about winning on appeal as he waited for the jury to enter the room to render its verdict.

Hadden had been placed in an adjacent room next to the Trumbull County Common Pleas courtroom of Judge John M. Stuard a couple of times during the weeklong trial.

He disrupted the proceedings with his comments about the victim while she testified, and with remarks about assistant Prosecutor Mike Burnett during Hadden’s own testimony.

On Wednesday, Atty. John Fowler said the defense was resting its case without calling any witnesses. But Hadden insisted on testifying when the trial resumed.

He testified that the woman accusing him of rape was a crack cocaine user. He was led from the witness chair when he began to curse at Burnett.

His accuser said Hadden held an ice pick near her as she drove him to her house to look for keys May 1, 2006. He then kept the ice pick nearby as he degraded her and forced her to perform sex in the living room of her home into the early hours of May 2, 2006.

The woman testified that she made up a story to escape to the upstairs of her home, gather up her sleeping 3-year-old son, lock the deadbolt on the inside of her bedroom and drop to the ground — nude — from a second-story window to the safety of a cousin’s house several blocks away.

The woman testified that she had known Hadden about six months and had sex with him two times before the attack. She didn’t want to have sex the night of the attack, she said, because she had to work the next day.

Judge Stuard revoked Hadden’s bond and will sentence him in about six weeks, after the Adult Probation Department conducts a pre-sentence investigation. He could get up to 211⁄2 years in prison.

runyan@vindy.com