Father testifies in rape trial of Niles man, 22

WARREN — A rape trial entered its second day today in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court, with the father of the victim testifying about Valentine’s Day last February, when he was told he was needed at his daughter’s grandmother’s house.

One of his daughters, 6, had spent the night there. She had something to tell him, and it was urgent, he was told.

His wife stayed at home to watch their two other children. When he arrived, his daughter told him Gilbert E. Skeins Jr., 22, who lived at her grandmother’s house in Niles, had sexually assaulted her.

If convicted of rape, Skeins could get a life prison sentence. He is also charged with gross sexual imposition, which could produce a prison sentence of up to three years.

Skeins was still in the house when the father arrived. “I threatened him and asked him why he could do that to my child,” the father testified.

The father said either he or his daughter’s aunt called Niles police, but he couldn’t remember which one. “I told him to get out,” he added of Skeins. Father and daughter left with the girl’s aunt, and they went to the Niles police station.

Later he and the aunt took the child to ValleyCare Trumbull Memorial Hospital, which rerouted the girl in an ambulance to Akron Children’s Hospital Mahoning Valley in Boardman, where she was checked by a doctor.

On the way to Trumbull, the girl threw up in the back seat, the father said. Skeins’ attorney, Kenneth J. Lewis, asked the father whether anyone collected the vomit, and the father said no.

Before Feb. 14, the father and Skeins had been “almost best friends” for about three years, the father testified. “We hung out almost every weekend,” he said, adding that he had never experienced any concerns about Skeins until Feb. 14.

His children stayed overnight at their grandmother’s house two to three times per month, he said.