Jury decides man assaulted woman - not that the pair fought over set of car keys
BY EMILY GURNON
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
"I didn't touch her more than her hands," he said. "I swear to God."
The jury didn't believe him.
The 12 jurors in the Ramsey County District Court case returned Tuesday afternoon with a verdict of guilty for Ibrahim after four hours of deliberation. He was convicted of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, the original charge in the case.
The victim, 18 at the time, said Ibrahim beat and raped her in a St. Paul apartment hallway after she refused to have sex with him.
Ibrahim, 26, declined to take the stand in his own defense.
In closing arguments Tuesday morning, prosecutor Jill Gerber scoffed at the idea that the Aug. 21 dispute between Ibrahim and the woman was only about keys - particularly since both were injured and naked from the waist down when police arrived.
"There was no fight over keys," Gerber said. "You don't throw punches and take your pants off and take your underwear off to get your car keys back."
What's more, Gerber said, Ibrahim did not have his car at the scene. Another man who was drinking with the two had picked up the woman.
The first St. Paul police officer and paramedic to arrive at the scene at the Afton View Apartments at 371 S. Winthrop St. described a very upset young woman.
"She kept repeating, over and over, and over and over, that she just wanted to die," officer Christopher Hoyt said.
The woman told the officer that Ibrahim had raped her. She had facial injuries and blood on the upper part of one of her legs, Hoyt said. Her bra was torn apart in front.
Defense attorney Jerod Peterson said the woman made the choice to go drinking with the two men, had too much, then was "caught" in the hallway by police, Peterson said. The state of the couple's clothes may have indicated some "amorous activity," he said.
"This was the beginning for (her) to try to explain the situation in a way in which she does not have personal responsibility," he said. "The bottom line in this case is a question of (the woman's) credibility."
The verdict may have hinged on a surveillance video recording of the apartment hallway.
The video spans about 80 minutes, beginning at 1:35 a.m. Ibrahim and the woman first appear about 2:11.
The recording shows a man standing over a woman on the floor, kneeling down, standing up again to take his pants off, then going down over her.
At one point, the man tries to drag her back into the apartment of Hussein Hussein, where they had been drinking.
Several residents can be seen opening their apartment doors, looking down the hallway toward the two people and closing their doors.
At one point, three men approach the couple. Ibrahim gets off the woman and heads towards the men - shoving one of them back. Another of the men turns his head and covers his eyes with his hand.
Toward the end, Ibrahim can be seen raising his arm above his head and bringing it down five times. The upper part of the woman's body is inside Hussein's doorway at that point and not visible on the recording - a point emphasized by the defense.
No one called 911, officials said, until 3:30 a.m., when one call came in from a man.
Ibrahim's mother, Fadumo Warsame, and seven other Somali women, many of whom attended the trial every day, said the man described during the trial was not the Rage Ibrahim they knew. He was a man who always helped the older women, frequently driving them to doctors' appointments and the grocery store.
Peterson said he would talk to his client about an appeal.
A sentencing date was not set in court Tuesday.
Emily Gurnon can be reached at [email protected] or 651-228-5522.
Source: Pioneer Press, Jan 15, 2008