ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 3, 1996 TAG: 9601030046
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
A Virginia Tech housekeeping supervisor who was fired and banned from campus has been indicted on charges of rape and the attempted forcible sodomy of a woman who worked for him.
A Montgomery County grand jury returned the two charges against Sidney Perry Cook, 35, of Christiansburg, during deliberations Tuesday. The indictments were among 97 returned by the grand jury.
At a preliminary hearing last November, a 25-year-old woman testified that Cook sexually assaulted her on June 23, 1995, while she was working for Tech's housekeeping department.
The woman testified she was cleaning at 104 Draper Ave., a two-story house used by the university for classes, when Cook knocked on the door of a classroom she was cleaning and she let him in.
While in the classroom, Cook put his hands down her sweat pants and made suggestive comments, the woman said.
Cook followed her to another part of the building, the woman testified, then came into a bathroom she was cleaning and locked the door.
She testified that she told Cook to stop when he pulled her shirt up, kissed her breasts and pulled down her pants.
"I just covered my face with my hands," the woman testified. "I done everything he said."
She said Cook had her in a bear hug at one time and raped her twice.
She testified she said "no" and tried to push her attacker away.
The woman said she had been sexually abused before and that is why she decided to get through the ordeal as best she could.
There was no one to call out to for help, she said. She was alone in the building. When her attacker left, she said, she went to another building to find a co-worker.
She said she told her family of the events the evening it happened, but didn't report it to police until some three weeks later.
Robbie Jenkins, Cook's attorney, tried to have the charges thrown out at the preliminary hearing. He was successful in getting an abduction charge dismissed, but the charges of rape and attempting to commit forcible sodomy stood.
Skip Schwab, assistant commonwealth's attorney, said the charges were legitimate because sexual acts were engaged in when the woman was not a consenting partner.
"There weren't any mixed signals. He wanted to have sex with her. ... She didn't," Schwab told General District Judge T.D. Frith in November.
Jenkins had contended the woman didn't go to a doctor or to police until she was disciplined by her supervisor.
The woman testified she continued to work at Tech under Cook's supervision but made sure she wasn't alone with him.
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