La Plata, MD – The fate of a Newburg man accused of forced sodomy during a woman’s drug and alcohol-induced wild night at Apehanger’s Bar is now in the hands of the jury.
Closing arguments were made before Charles County Circuit Court Judge H. James West Thursday, Oct. 8.
After two days of testimony, videos, audio transcripts of telephone conversations and DNA analysis, Charles County Assistant State’s Attorney Sarah Freeman told the jury, “The videos speak for themselves.
“This entire case boils down to two things,” Freeman said. “If you follow the law as instructed and apply it to the state’s evidence, your verdict will be guilty. If you believe the DNA testimony, the defendant’s DNA was found in the crotch of the victim’s jeans—on the inside.”
Freeman played a phone conversation between the victim and the defendant recorded by police.
“What in the hell happened the other night?” the victim asked Lancaster in the phone conversation. The victim intimated that “we had some sort of sexual intercourse.”
The defendant is heard responding, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The woman asked again, “Did we have sex?”
“No,” the defendant tells her. “I have a girlfriend. I would never do something like that. Nothing of that sort happened.”
Freeman admitted the victim had two Xanax, one Zoloft and “three-to-five” beers during the day and at least two more drinks at Apehangers.
Video from Sept. 8, 2013 at Apehangers shows the woman dancing on the bar, at points lifting up her blouse to expose her breasts and twice taking her pants down.
“It’s not a crime to dance on a bar top,” Freeman told the jury.
And while there was no blood or semen found on the inside crotch of the victim’s jeans, amalaze or spittle belonging to the defendant, was.
“I don’t mean to be rude, but spit was the lubrication,” Freeman said.
Charles County Assistant Public Defendant Michele Harewood pointed out that when the victim came into Apehanger’s, the bartender was closing up her shift.
The bartender, she said, warned the person taking over her shift that the woman was already intoxicated and not to serve her any more drinks.
“As you can see in the video, she gets other drinks,” Harewood said.
Harewood recounted the testimony of a patron at the bar, James Shoemaker, who admitted that the woman was flirting with several men during the evening and at one point raised her blouse up exposing her breasts.
“You heard him say, yes, twice,” she stated.
Harewood asked the man if he thought he was going to “get lucky.”
“I thought I was,” the man said.
The attorney asked the jury to consider that although the woman claimed not to remember anything that happened that night, when she was dancing on the bar, she had no trouble stepping over items on the bar while she danced.
“She didn’t fall,” Harewood said. “The state is saying don’t blame, don’t judge the victim because she was drunk. You have to look at her behavior.”
The state kept talking about DNA swiped from a butt print on the hood of the victim’s car, she said.
“His butt print wouldn’t be on the car if they were having anal sex,” she said.
Harewood also asserted that when the phone call was recorded, the defendant didn’t know there was an officer listening.
“He told her, flat out, ‘I didn’t have sex with you,’ ” she said. “It’s a consistent denial. He didn’t lie. He didn’t need to.”
She asked the jury not to allow the state “to tie you up,” Harewood stressed.
“According to the victim there was no condom used,” she said. “Where is the semen? It should be somewhere. It should be all over the place.”
She told the jury at the end of the day, they needed to find her client not guilty.
“You have to be convinced,” she instructed. “I ask you, does that story make sense?”
Contact Joseph Norris at joe.norris@thebaynet.com