Tampa Bay Criminal Defense Lawyer - Justice

By Nicholas Dorsten, Esq.

From the St. Pete Times website, another example of the old saying "A person who represents himself has a fool for a client"

TAMPA — The verdict hit the man accused of rape so hard he dropped to his seat and wept.

He was guilty, a jury decided late Thursday night. He posed as a cop (impersonating a police officer) to rob and rape a woman along Bayshore Boulevard.

He had spent nine hours awaiting the news in a holding cell, stripped of his tie and his belt.

He could spend the rest of his life in prison. He'll get his sentence Feb. 17, though his attorneys plan to appeal.

He was led out of the courtroom for jail, head hung, after telling his mother he loved her. He said one last thing, at the mention of a second case in which he is accused of posing as a cop (impersonating a police officer) and pistol-whipping a man:

"I'm not waiving speedy trial!"

The same declaration led him, three weeks ago, to ditch his criminal defense attorney who wanted time to prepare. Most defendants facing steep charges waive the right to a trial within 175 days of arrest. The man convicted of rape refused. He opted for a failed three-day attempt at self-representation, in which jurors saw him struggle as he cross-examined the victim and was admonished by the judge.

Those jurors got one last image of him before they went in for deliberations: the defendant being yanked from the courtroom.

The defendant, who made a sudden request for criminal defense attorneys midway through the trial, wanted to have the last word in his defense.

And he got it.

Just after a prosecutor finished closing arguments, the defendant stood and pointed to the victim.

The sudden move prompted one juror to duck.

The soon to be convicted rapist began to blurt out things not admitted into the trial as evidence.

"What they're not telling you is she has four DUIs," he bellowed. "She's been arrested four times."

"Sit down!" yelled the Circuit Judge. "Get him out of the courtroom right now!"

Jurors watched as three bailiffs grabbed the rape suspect and pushed him out a back door. One covered his mouth, but the defendant kept trying to say something about the victim laughing in an interview.

As if nothing had happened, the judge immediately began to instruct jurors on the law they needed to use to deliberate.

The judge didn't address the outburst. He said he didn't think jurors heard much over the judge's yells.

And nobody moved for a mistrial, something the Tampa rape suspect told his mother he wanted soon after the trial began. The reason, he told her: He didn't like his jury.

The four men and two women worked for more than nine hours Thursday, asking for transcripts of testimony. They told the judge they wanted to be thorough. They ate lunch in the courtroom. Dinner, too. Even the alternates who got dismissed stuck around, curious.

They had spent two weeks with a pinhole view of one of the most chaotic, bizarre trials in the court's recent history, kept out of the loop last week as the judge pondered a mistrial. In another courtroom, the jurors had talked football and played card games.

Finally, on Tuesday, they got back to work listening to testimony. They heard closing arguments Thursday from a prosecutor and a defense attorney who summed up both accounts of the night of July 29.

The attorney for the suspect told jurors not to hold his' lawyering attempt against him.

"Although that may not have been the smartest decision," it was said, "he is not on trial to test his common sense."

One juror later said he and the others based their guilty verdict solely on the evidence provided and didn't weigh in any of the rape suspect's outbursts, tears or his attempt to represent himself.

"That didn't have any weight in the decision we made," he said.

The attorney for the defendant told jurors the victim's story has changed and the truth should never change.

The Assistant State Attorney said it was the rape story that kept changing. He lied to detectives during an interview, saying he had never seen the victim. She said the defendant was sweating on the video they watched, trying to keep his lies straight.

The prosecutor asked them to consider this:

If he'd had consensual sex with the victim, why did police find him hiding on a rooftop?

Just after that question, the defendant shot from his seat.

His mother watched with approval. The jury needed to know, said the defendant's mother, "what kind of girl" the victim is.

The victim has been arrested on suspicion of DUI, but jail records show her blood alcohol content was 0.00 and court records show no convictions.

Jurors didn't know the defendant served a prison sentence for grand theft and was acquitted of a 1999 rape charge.

His mother clutched a tissue when she spoke with the St. Petersburg Times and cried over the possibility her son could spend the rest of his life in prison.

"He's all I have," she said as she waited for the verdict. "In my heart, I know he's innocent."

The victim, too, lingered.

At the beginning of the day, she'd taken the front-row seat.

A prosecutor had reached for her hand and told her, "We have to trust the jury."

Have you or a loved one been arrested for a violent crime? Then contact the Tampa Bay criminal defense attorneys of Blake & Dorsten, P.A. for a free consultation!

For more information, or to speak directly with experienced Tampa Bay criminal defense lawyers please contact BLAKE & DORSTEN, P.A. at 727.286.6141 or email the lawyers your questions at: info@blakedorstenlaw.com.

We are located at 4707 140th Ave N, Suite 104 in Clearwater, across from the criminal courthouse in the airport business center, minutes from Tampa and St. Petersburg.