HOUSTON - A jury convicted a man Tuesday of raping another man, one of five sexual assaults he is accused of committing on men in an eight-month spree in 2006. The sentencing phase of the trial was to begin later Tuesday for Keith Hill, who could receive anything from five years' probation to life in prison for aggravated sexual assault.
ADVERTISEMENT
The trial focused on just one of the cases against him: A May 2006 attack of a teenager who said he was forced to perform oral sex at gunpoint after he was abducted from his driveway near Houston.
The U.S. Justice Department says one in 33 men in the United States has been a victim of a rape or attempted rape, compared with one in six women. Experts say men are far less likely to report a rape because they fear being perceived as weak.
Hill, 20, pleaded not guilty to the attacks, and his attorney, Lane Lindsey, said Tuesday that a confession he gave to Harris County Sheriff's Sgt. Shane McCoy in February may have been coerced.
Lindsey said Hill gave a written confession after six hours of interrogation by McCoy and police officers from Baytown, the refinery town where the attacks allegedly occurred. Because there is no videotape or audiotape of the confession, it's impossible to tell whether the statement is genuine, Lindsey argued.
But in his closing arguments, prosecutor Spence Graham said it should be easy for the jury to convict Hill because his semen was found on the victim's shirt and because his confession included information that only the actual assailant could know.
Hill did not testify and his attorney did not present any witnesses before making closing arguments on Tuesday morning.
Hill also faces charges of aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon and aggravated kidnapping in connection with the other cases. Prosecutors have said they will decide how to proceed with the four other cases after Hill's trial.
Source: Deandra
No comments:
Post a Comment