Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Bar rapist pleads no contest just before trial - sentenced to 8 years

Earnest Reno Rainey, 39, pleaded no contest to sexual battery against a physically helpless person in an incident exactly 2 years earlier where he drugged, then raped a woman at a Deland, FL bar.

State Attorney's Office spokeswoman Linda Pruitt said his plea averted a trial for rape (called sexual battery in Florida). Rainey will be sentenced to 8 years in prison and 8 more years of sex offender probation.

The bartender said she saw Rainey sitting next to the victim at the bar at 11 p.m. on March 24, 2006, sheriff's investigators said.

The victim told deputies she ordered a mixed drink that night and does not remember anything else. When she regained consciousness, she discovered Rainey had taken off her pants and was raping her, the report states.

She screamed for help, and Rainey punched her several times and began strangling her. The victim played dead and after Rainey walked away, she picked up her clothes and ran into some nearby woods on East Beresford Avenue, the report states.

The victim passed out again in the woods and did not wake up until the next morning. She could not find her car, which police later found in Sanford.

Rainey was teacked down after DNA evidence was collected, and the bartender picked him out of a lineup. Rainey, after serving his sentence, will be on the Florida sex offender registry for life.

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