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Trumbull jury returns quick guilty verdicts in rape trial
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
A jury deliberated only one hour Thursday morning before delivering verdicts finding Jonathan R. Emerine, 24, of North Road in Howland guilty of rape and three counts of gross sexual imposition involving girls age 11 and 13 in separate 2015 incidents.
Emerine, who sat without emotion during the trial, likewise showed no reaction when the verdicts were read by Judge Peter Kontos of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court.
Emerine will be sentenced April 18. Diane Barber, assistant Trumbull County prosecutor, said she will ask Judge Kontos to give Emerine the maximum — 361/2 years to life in prison.
The rape conviction carries a sentence of 25 years to life because it contained a factual finding that Emerine compelled the victim, 11, to submit by force or threat of force.
Both girls testified during the three-day trial that Emerine groped each one. The touching became rape when it involved penetration of the younger girl’s privates, Barber said.
Barber said these types of cases are difficult to prosecute because there was no physical evidence – only the testimony of the girls, a few adults, expert witnesses and corroborating evidence from text messages.
“But these cases can be prosecuted, and they can be won,” Barber said.
The younger girl was staying overnight at Emerine’s house in April with her siblings and sleeping on the couch when Emerine walked into the living room and asked her if she wanted to watch a show on his cellphone with him.
Over the course of about an hour, they watched the movie while lying on the couch together, then went to the basement a couple of times to do loads of laundry, she said. It was about 1 a.m.
The girl said Emerine touched her while saying he was looking for her “tickle spot,” but she became increasingly uncomfortable as the touching got worse and text-messaged her mother in hopes of having her come get her.
But Emerine was watching her write the messages, so she couldn’t tell her mother everything, she said.
She never told anyone about the offenses until her mother asked her about Emerine — after a girl, 13, alleged Emerine had touched her chest area a few months later.
Rhys Cartwright Jones, Emerine’s attorney, told the jury in closing arguments that no contact between Emerine and the girls involved force. He also argued that the younger girl’s statements at times included words like “kinda” that suggested she wasn’t sure of what happened.
But Barber told jurors that Emerine’s refusal to stop touching her when she told him to was all that was needed to prove that Emerine used force or threat of force.
When asked after the verdicts whether the conviction will help her family heal, the younger girl’s mother said, “It’s a start.”