ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times

DATE: Saturday, December 2, 1995             TAG: 9512030033
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: C-3  EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER 


MAN GETS 10 YEARS FOR RAPING GIRL

A homeless man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for walking into a Southwest Roanoke home on an August night and raping a 15-year-old girl who had fallen asleep on a couch after leaving the front door open to catch a breeze.

Charlie E. Bonds, 38, received the sentence as part of a plea agreement reached in Roanoke Circuit Court.

In return for Bonds' guilty plea to a charge of rape, prosecutors agreed to drop a second charge of breaking and entering.

The offense happened more than two years ago, but an earlier mistrial had delayed the prosecution. At that trial - which was aborted after a juror disclosed that he had heard about the case or a similar one earlier from his wife - Chief Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Betty Jo Anthony gave the following account:

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 did not respond, the girl told police.

A soft drink can left in the grass outside the home bore Bonds' fingerprints. But Assistant Public Defender John Varney had told the jury in February that there was no evidence linking his client to the crime.

The girl, who is considered legally blind without her glasses, was unable to see her assailant in the darkened room, Varney said. Several days later, she could not pick Bonds out of a photographic lineup.

When Bonds was charged with rape, Anthony said, he ripped up the warrant and told police, "You don't have anything on me."

But after spending two years in jail awaiting trial, he apparently changed his mind.


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