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

DATE: SATURDAY, April 30, 1994                   TAG: 9404300011
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: By KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD                                LENGTH: Medium

RAPE CHARGE CERTIFIED TO GRAND JURY

But in a statement given to police, Theodore W. Whitford, 22, said the two had consensual sex.

After a preliminary hearing in Radford General District Court, Judge James P. Brice certified the rape charge to the June grand jury. That means a panel of five people will decide whether to indict Whitford on the rape charge and have the case heard in Circuit Court.

A misdemeanor sexual assault charge - filed by another woman who said Whitford made advances toward her and fondled her private parts two days before the alleged rape - was dismissed.

In the hearing on the rape charge, the woman, 18, testified that she was asleep in a male friend's room at about noon on Dec. 5 when Whitford came in and began talking to her and rubbing her legs. She testified she was tired from dancing and staying up late during her visit, and asked Whitford several times to get her friend to come into the room.

Instead, she testified, Whitford crawled into the bed with her, held her arms back and forced her to have sex with him. She said she tried to cry out for help and told Whitford "no," but that she was unable to scream loudly because she couldn't get enough air while Whitford was on top of her.

"I tried to push him off. I told him to stop. I tried to push him off but I couldn't," the woman said in a rush as she began to cry.

Whitford, who dated the woman's cousin, did not testify during the preliminary hearing. But his attorney, Jimmy Turk, argued that had the woman cried out for help people sleeping in nearby rooms, or her friend, who was in the living room, would have heard her because the door was open and the apartment walls were thin.

"This is not the easiest rape case I've been confronted with," Brice said before making his ruling. He stressed the hearing was only to determine whether there was probable cause that a rape had been committed. The issue was whether the woman consented, he said.

"A person that is a female has a right to refuse any male at any time . . . regardless of what's happened previously," Brice said.