Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 15, 1994 TAG: 9401170234
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
But the Virginia Tech fraternity pledge charged in the case said he had consensual sex with the woman.
Richard Todd Raines, 20, was found guilty of rape Friday in Montgomery County Circuit Court by Judge William Arthur after he heard both students testify.
Raines will be sentenced after a background report is prepared by a probation officer.
The woman, 19, testified she had gone to a friend's room in the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity house on Ramble Road in Blacksburg to sleep after attending a party there with friends. She drank some beer during the party but was unsure how much, she testified.
Around 6 a.m., she awoke to find Raines on top of her and having intercourse with her, she told the judge.
The woman said she was a sound sleeper and was shocked to wake up to find her clothes pulled down and the man on top off her.
Using profanity, she told the man to get off of her. She got out of bed, got dressed and went looking for her friends, she testified.
``I was hysterical. I was in shock,'' she said Friday.
She said she did not know Raines and was not aware he had climbed into the bed - a loft suspended above the floor - with her.
The woman said she went for an examination at Radford Community Hospital at about noon that day, then reported the incident to Blacksburg police the following day.
But Raines, who was being initiated into TKE later the day of the incident, testified that he believed the woman was aware he was with her.
Raines, a junior at Virginia Tech from Harrisonburg, testified he climbed into the loft bed with the woman because people were coming in and out of the room and disturbing him as he tried to sleep on his friend's floor.
He said the woman stirred from her sleep and he rubbed her back and asked if she was OK. He said the woman made advances to him and they began to undress each other.
Raines testified they engaged in intercourse for several minutes but the woman then said, ``Get off me, I can't do this.''
Raines said he complied with her wishes, then followed her outside the room because she seemed upset.
Raines said he later became worried because a fraternity brother told him the woman was the girlfriend of the man whose room she had been sleeping in.
``I was upset because I'd found out that I'd just slept with one of my big brothers' girlfriend,'' he testified.
Raines, who said he had about 10 beers over eight hours of the party, said that's why he apologized to his fraternity brother and suggested his friend hit him for what he had done.
by CNB