ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, April 20, 1996 TAG: 9604220028
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: FINCASTLE
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
A former Coyner Springs Juvenile Detention Center counselor was convicted of statutory rape Friday for a scheme he arranged in which he and a 15-year-old boy had sex with two teen-age girls.
The juveniles, all three of whom had previously been in Coyner Springs, testified that Cedric Lavender, 32, picked them up in his car, bought them "Gin and Juice'' at a liquor store and checked them into the Travel Lodge Motel in Troutville.
Lavender rented two rooms, but neither girl knew that, they testified.
Both girls were 14 at the time.
The four of them first went into one room, but the boy and one of the girls left for the other room. Lavender then sat on the bed next to the victim and started kissing her neck, she said.
She told him "no," she said, but he held her down and slipped off her oversize jeans. After a while, she said, she stopped resisting.
Lavender and the boy planned to switch girls later, Commonwealth's Attorney Joel Branscom argued.
Lavender's attorney, Robert Rider, said the juveniles concocted the story. Lavender and his friend Amy Hardy testified that Lavender could not have been with the girl because Lavender and Hardy were out buying a birthday cake for Hardy's roommate's 18th birthday that morning.
Lavender said he picked up the three juveniles at the hotel later, after the boy contacted him via his pager.
"I'm going to tell you right out," Judge George Honts said in making his ruling. "Amy Hardy was not a credible witness."
Lavender's alibi came apart when the roommate and her mother testified they were out together all day and could not have been there when Hardy and Lavender said they gave the roommate her cake.
The May 17 rape didn't come to light until a supervisor at the New River Valley Juvenile Detention Home overheard the two girls talking about it while in custody there.
Lavender was arrested Aug. 21. His part-time job at the center ended Aug. 22, according to court testimony.
Rider pecked away at the juveniles' story, forcing them to admit several lies, but they never wavered on the most crucial points: Lavender and the boy picked up the girls, went to an automated teller machine where Lavender got some cash, and then checked into the Travel Lodge. They left for a while to pick up the liquor, but then returned to the motel. The boy and one of the girls left for one of the rooms, where they had sex, they both testified. The victim was left in the room with Lavender.
Branscom said Lavender's version of the events just didn't make sense. How did three kids from Roanoke, Roanoke County and Salem wind up partying on a school day in a Troutville motel with a bottle of liquor? he asked. Why did they rent two rooms, and where did they get $90 to pay for them? And why didn't Lavender, who knew them to be delinquents and who worked at a detention facility, report it to someone?
If the teens had made up their story, Branscom argued, how was the victim able to take Botetourt County Sheriff's Office Investigator Beth Musselwhite to the teller machine where bank records showed Lavender made a $100 withdrawal the morning of the crime?
Honts agreed there were "too many motel rooms and too much money" for three juveniles.
He found Lavender guilty of the statutory rape charge and one of three counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Honts found him not guilty of one of the contributing charges because it involved the rape victim and seemed to be overkill, and of the other because the 15-year-old, who admitted on the stand to petit larceny and selling cocaine, "is already about as delinquent as he could get."
Lavender remains free on $25,000 bond. When he is sentenced June 13, he could receive up to 11 years in prison.
LENGTH: Medium: 73 linesby CNB