Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 23, 1995 TAG: 9502230059
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
According to prosecutors, Charlie E. Bonds told the arresting officer: "You don't have anything on me."
That will be for a jury to decide - but not the one that was impaneled Wednesday in Roanoke Circuit Court to hear charges against Bonds of rape and breaking and entering with intent to commit rape.
After lawyers gave their opening statements, a juror told Judge Clifford Weckstein that the case reminded him of an incident his wife had told him about earlier. She had heard about the incident from a friend.
Although it was a different case, and the juror did not think it would have any bearing on his ability to give Bonds a fair trial, Weckstein nonetheless declared a mistrial at the request of Assistant Public Defender John Varney.
"I'm afraid that as more details come out, he may remember more details of what his wife said," Varney said in asking that the juror be removed. Because an alternate juror was not selected for the two-day trial, a new trial had to be scheduled for April 10.
Before the case ended with a mistrial, Chief Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Betty Jo Anthony gave the following summary of what police say happened:
On the night of Aug. 11, 1993, a man was seen prowling around the Old Southwest neighborhood. Police responded to a call from a concerned resident and saw a man, but didn't make an arrest.
About 4:30 a.m., a 15-year-old girl was sleeping on the living room couch of a Clarke Avenue home. She had left the front door open to allow a breeze through the screen door.
She later told police that she awoke to find a stranger having sex with her. The man asked her if she wanted him to stay or go, then left when she made no response, the girl told police.
According to Anthony, Bonds' fingerprints were found on a soft-drink can that had been tossed in the front yard of the home, and he earlier had told police he would "probably plead guilty" if arrested.
But Varney argued that there was no firm evidence to link his client to the rape. The girl, who is considered legally blind without her glasses, was unable to see her assailant in the darkened room, he told the jury.
The girl was also unable to identify Bonds in a photographic lineup shown to her by police several days after the incident, Varney said.
As for the reports that Bonds, 37, had been seen in the area hours before the girl was raped, Varney conceded that his client - a mentally retarded, homeless man - may well have been in the neighborhood.
"He basically lives on the streets," Varney said.
by CNB