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NJ man accused of rape convicted of menacing
YOUNGSTOWN
A jury failed to find a 37-year-old New Jersey man guilty of raping his estranged wife but did find him guilty of menacing.
Oscar Ponce’s trial began late last week before a jury in the courtroom of Judge Maureen A. Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. He was charged with two counts of rape and one count of menacing by stalking.
Jurors had been deliberating in the case for more than two days this week before telling the court Wednesday they were deadlocked and couldn’t agree on guilt or innocence on both counts of rape.
The jury did find Ponce guilty of menacing but also found that he did not have a pattern of stalking his 32-year-old estranged wife.
Natasha Frenchko, an assistant county prosecutor, said she intends to try the case a second time on the rape charges. No sentencing will be forthcoming until that second trial takes place.
Ponce had been accused of coming to the woman’s Beech Avenue home in Boardman in September 2008. The woman told police she was communicating with a man on the Internet when Ponce became angry, hit and smothered her and then forced her to have sex.
Frenchko told jurors that Ponce’s wife met him as a teen and married the man young. She said Ponce had been abusive and threatening toward the woman throughout the marriage, including when she separated from him and moved to Boardman.
Frenchko told jurors that Ponce became jealous upon seeing his estranged wife communicate with another man online and began to beat and sexually assault the woman.
Atty. Jeffrey Limbian, representing Ponce, told the jurors that Ponce’s wife is a calculating woman who persuaded her husband to sell their home in New Jersey, buy a home in Boardman and put the remaining money into a mutual account before telling him she no longer wanted to be with him.
Limbian told jurors there was no rape or menacing by his client.
Limbian said Ponce caught his wife in a compromising position talking to another man via webcam on the Internet. He said the woman, after being struck by a door upon Ponce’s entrance into the bedroom, attempted to have sex with Ponce while apologizing for her actions.