Sunday, June 8, 2008

Adamstown, Maryland man convicted of rape of girlfriend


A Maryland man was convicted of five counts of first-degree rape and one count each of second-and third-degree sex offense for raping his girlfriend April 15, 2007 after 5 hours of deliberation. The rape was the culmination of an abusive and violent relationship he had with his "partner," a Rockville, MD woman who had a daughter by him and two other girls from previous relationships.

George W. Mathis of Adamtown faced life in prison for the 1st degree rape charges, and sentencing will be August 13. The defense lawyer is Assistant Public Defender Stephen Musselman and the prosecuting lawyer is Assistant State's Attorney Lindell K. Angel.

He had been with the victim for 7 years, starting in March 2000. The rape occurred after the victim was caught with another man, according to Mathis.

In July 2002, Mathis attacked her shortly before she gave birth to their daughter, she said. Delivery nurses questioned her about bruises on her arms and her legs.

The week the baby was due, Mathis became angry when he saw she'd set up a nursery at her father's Montgomery County residence; he wanted her to move back in with him in Adamstown.
"He broke the crib É and tore apart the room," the 36-year-old woman said. "The room was just destroyed."


Those two instances of violence were among five earlier outbursts by Mathis a jury was allowed to hear about Tuesday, the second day of his rape trial.

Spanning November 2001 to May 2004, the instances illustrated "a continuum" of bad acts, Judge John H. Tisdale said Tuesday, finding them relevant to the proceedings.

The two kids that the victim had from a previous relationship testified about the night of the latest rape. The rape occured on the night of custody exchange with the victim, and the rape was reported to Heidi Bresee, a SANE nurse the next day.

Both girls recounted how Mathis asked their mother to step into his bedroom to talk. He then shut the door and locked it. "There was talking, then yelling," the teen testified. "She said, 'Stop.'"

As the hours dragged on, their mother came out of the bedroom -- never out of Mathis' sight. She was wrapped in a blanket. "She smiled, but she looked like she had been crying," the older child said, acknowledging, when asked, that she saw bruises on her mother. "Her face, her arms, around her neck," she said.

"They were acting normal," she said of her mother and Mathis, "like nothing had happened."

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