
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, May 15, 1990                   TAG: 9005150541
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Laurence Hammack
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

MAINTENANCE MAN CLEARED OF RAPE CHARGE

A maintenance man at a Northwest Roanoke apartment complex was acquitted Monday of charges that he broke into an apartment and raped a tenant last December.

Larry Joseph Bruner, 36, had been accused of rape and breaking and entering with intent to commit rape at Ferncliff Apartments the night of Dec. 1.

But after a bench trial Monday in Roanoke Circuit Court, substitute Judge Robert L. Powell dismissed the charges against him.

Bruner, who no longer works for the complex, testified that he was not at the apartments on the night in question - an alibi that was corroborated by his girlfriend.

Evidence Monday also showed that the woman who accused Bruner of breaking into her apartment and raping her had a blood-alcohol content of .35 percent that night.

by CNB