Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 19, 1993 TAG: 9302190265
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
OFFICER INDICTED ON RAPE, ATTEMPTED RAPE CHARGES
A Christiansburg policeman - who has been suspended from the department without pay since his arrest last fall - has been indicted on two charges of rape and five of attempted rape involving a juvenile girl.Willis Ornes, 40, of Pulaski also was indicted by a Pulaski County grand jury in an attempted malicious wounding of a woman.
All eight incidents in the indictments are alleged to have happened Oct. 4.
A grand jury returned the indictments late Wednesday afternoon.
Ornes was arrested in October by Pulaski police and is being held in the Pulaski County Jail.
At the time, he was charged with attempted rape of a juvenile girl and with trying to injure a woman with a butcher knife.
A preliminary hearing on the original attempted rape charges was held in Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court Nov. 5 and was closed to the public.
He waived a preliminary hearing on the attempted malicious wounding charge.
Ornes, a New York City native and a former Marine, previously was employed with the Goldsboro, N.C., police and the Radford Sheriff's Department.
He is one of two Christiansburg policemen who filed a federal suit in July against the town and three department officials claiming harassment on the job and denial of equal employment opportunities because of their national origins.
The suit was dismissed because it claimed denial of property rights and due process; U.S. Judge James Turk said the officers should have filed a claim of denial of equal protection under the law.
It has not been filed again.
Ornes' background is Hispanic. The other officer, who is of Italian descent, resigned Dec. 7.