THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 20, 1997 TAG: 9702200065
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON FRANK, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 73 lines
A prosecutor's husband was acquitted of rape and sodomy charges Wednesday, leading his defense attorney to charge that the prosecution was a political attack orchestrated by the Virginia Beach commonwealth's attorney's office.
The defendant, David L. Baldwin, 37, walked out of Circuit Court a free man after the two-day trial. The jury deliberated 40 minutes.
Baldwin's wife, Ramona, was a prosecutor in Virginia Beach for seven years before she was fired in November. She sobbed for several minutes after the verdicts were read, then left the courtroom arm-in-arm with her husband.
``This case should never have been tried,'' said Baldwin's attorney, Moody E. ``Sonny'' Stallings Jr. ``It was aimed at Ramona Baldwin and was a misuse of the criminal justice system.''
Ramona Baldwin is now a prosecutor in Suffolk and a candidate for a Virginia Beach judgeship. She refused to comment after the trial.
When he was indicted Nov. 4, David Baldwin also was charged with adultery. That charge was dropped Tuesday, just before the trial began.
Soon after the indictment, Ramona Baldwin, 40, wrote a memo to her supervisor in the Virginia Beach commonwealth's attorney's office about a rape case that she was handling. She asked that the case, which was similar to her husband's, be reassigned to another prosecutor. She claimed that prosecting such cases presented her with an ethical conflict.
Commonwealth's Attorney Robert J. Humphreys fired Baldwin upon receiving her memo. He claimed the memo proved that Baldwin could no longer effectively do her job.
At the time, Baldwin and some other Virginia Beach prosecutors were being mentioned as candidates for a judgeship in General District Court. The General Assembly is expected to make that appointment by the end of this week.
After she was fired, Ramona Baldwin filed a race discrimination suit against Humphreys. That case is pending.
The criminal case against David Baldwin was turned over to the Norfolk commonwealth's attorney's office, to avoid conflict of interests. Judge J.W. Stephens from Newport News was the trial judge.
David Baldwin was accused of attacking a 23-year-old woman while both worked in a summer recreation program with the city Parks and Recreation Department last summer. The alleged attack took place Aug. 5 in the woman's Virginia Beach apartment.
During the trial, David Baldwin admitted having sex with the woman, but said it was consensual.
Prosecutor Valerie Bowen said the case was about ``a violation of trust, a violation of the trust of co-workers,'' but could not convince jurors, despite two hours of testimony Tuesday by the alleged victim.
The woman claimed that David Baldwin committed oral sodomy on her while they watched television in her apartment after a day of working together in a summer program at Kingston Elementary School. She said Baldwin then raped her.
But a friend whom the woman called that night testified Wednesday that the alleged victim never suggested that she had been raped during a two-hour conversation on the evening of Aug. 5. Instead, it was the friend who brought up the idea of acquaintance rape to the alleged victim.
``She never said she was raped?'' Stallings asked Sarah Van Schaick, the woman's friend, during testimony Wednesday.
``She didn't have to,'' Van Schaick answered.
``You told her she was raped?'' Stallings said.
``I told her,'' the woman replied.
The alleged victim also testified that she accepted a ride to work with Baldwin the morning after the incident and continued working with him without incident for the rest of the summer.
It wasn't until five weeks later, on Sept. 11, when Baldwin began showing interest in another co-worker, that the alleged victim told her supervisor and police that she had been raped, according to testimony.
After Wednesday's verdict, Stallings said that David Baldwin was prosecuted in an effort to damage Ramona Baldwin's chances of being named a judge.
``There was never any evidence of force or intimidation,'' Stallings said. ``Somebody should have pulled the plug on this (prosecution) in Norfolk. They put this family through hell.''