IL- Witness' reversal leads to dropped rape charge

7-17-2009 Illinois:

WOODSTOCK – A 26-year-old woman who police originally said was raped by a homeless man in a Woodstock coin-operated laundry later told authorities that it was consensual.

But she acknowledged that Jeffrey A. Cole approached her with a pellet gun that looked like a handgun and blocked her from leaving a bathroom about 2:30 a.m. Sept. 5, 2008, said Nichole Owens, chief of the McHenry County State’s Attorney’s Criminal Division.

That led prosecutors to drop charges of criminal sexual assault against Cole, 26, on Wednesday in exchange for him pleading guilty to aggravated unlawful restraint and receiving a four-year prison term. He could have been sentenced to up to 30 years in prison if convicted of rape.

Prosecutors learned of the consent after meeting with the woman multiple times and confirming that she had sent an e-mail to a friend shortly after the incident stating that the sex acts were consensual, despite telling the police otherwise.

“At a subsequent meeting, she reiterated that the sex acts were consensual,” Owens said. “She said he asked if she wanted to engage in sexual activity, and she said yes. And that was an honest answer for her.”

Cole will serve his sentence at the same time as the 12-year sentence he is serving for sexually assaulting a woman in an alley in Cook County on Oct. 30, 2006. He was out on bond in that case when he was arrested on the Woodstock charges, Owens said.

Authorities will consider the Cook County sexual assault, the McHenry County unlawful restraint, and Cole’s prior criminal history at the end of his prison sentence and decide whether to seek treatment and monitoring for him as a sexually violent person, Owens said.

After the rape charges were filed in the Woodstock case, the woman told prosecutors about the e-mail to her friend but led prosecutors to believe that she falsely claimed that the acts were consensual as her way of dealing with trauma from the incident, Owens said.

Prosecutors explored having an expert testify about rape trauma syndrome but ultimately decided to drop the charges when the woman reiterated that the acts were consensual, Owens said.

Cole’s attorney, Frank Tedesso, said his client could have faced additional prison time if he was convicted of the original charges, so he accepted the plea agreement.

Cole also had been charged with disorderly conduct stemming from an incident in which he was spotted, armed with what looked like a handgun, in the backyard of a residence in the 200 block of Fremont Street in Woodstock.

That incident allegedly happened the day before the unlawful restraint, but prosecutors dropped the misdemeanor charge to pursue the felony charges against Cole. ..Source.. by JILLIAN DUCHNOWSKI