[Buckskin86]

Hennepin County / Former Gopher's rape trial begins
Case hinges on whether woman gave consent
By David Hanners
dhanners@pioneerpress.com
Article Last Updated: 04/02/2008


Except for a couple of major points, prosecutors and defense lawyers in the Dominic Jones trial Wednesday laid out remarkably similar scenarios: A year ago today, a handful of college football players were partying and drinking with some underage women, and things took a perverse turn.

One of the women ? then just shy of her 20th birthday ? had consumed way too much 80-proof vodka. She passed out, and when she awoke a few hours later, her jeans were down around her knees, her panties were stuffed in one of her pockets and there were splotches of a dry, crusty substance on her face.

Assistant Hennepin County Attorney Marlene Senechal told jurors the woman had no idea how she got that way, but when investigators pieced the puzzle together, they concluded Jones had had sex with a near-comatose woman, then straddled her and ejaculated on her face.

"She was physically helpless and we would ask you to find him guilty as charged," Senechal told jurors in her opening remarks at Jones' trial.

http://www.twincities.com/ci_8790374