A calm and well-spoken Sylvester Antonio Ray testified Thursday he had consensual sex with three women over six months nearly a decade ago and all three repaid him by calling him a rapist.
He described one as a amateur prostitute, another as a thief and a third heavy-set one as not his type but said he had sex with her anyway. Ray had no explanation for why the women, who didn't know each other, reported to police they had been raped shortly after meeting him in 2002 and 2003.
One woman proposed sex for about $150 and another picked his pocket when he slept, Ray said.
"I told her for that kind of money, I'm going to get everything," he testified of the woman whom he said offered sex for cash. "I flashed my money.
DeKalb County prosecutor Patricia Jackson, when questioning the 40-year-old Ray, said he had an unbelievable and unfortunate track record.
"Everybody is picking on you?" she asked. "Somebody accusing you of raping them three times, you wouldn't call that unlucky at bars."
The women, one who traveled from Virginia and another from west Tennessee, said they never saw Ray again until 2010 when they picked his picture from a photo line-up.
After three days of testimony, the case went to the jury at 3:45 p.m. Thursday. The panel was dismissed after more than two hours of deliberations and will reconvene Friday morning.
Ray's lawyer, Juwayn Haddad, told jurors in DeKalb County Superior Court that poor investigation by DeKalb police was reason enough to acquit his client because detectives failed to verify or refute the women's claims through available witnesses. He noted District Attorney Robert James, who led the prosecution, didn't call three detectives who were assigned the cases to testify, highlighting the botched investigation in 2002 and 2003.
DeKalb Police could have arrested Ray's in 2002 before the alleged attacks on the three women. The trio testified this week if a detective had followed up on the license plate number a fourth rape victim had provided given them, Ray could have been behind bars, according to the court file.
The tag number belonged to a car owned by Ray's long-time fiancee. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation later determined by DNA analysis the first woman as well as the three who testified at trial were raped by the same man. In 2010 DeKalb police Lt. J.C. Popp re-opened the investigation into all four cases in and discovered the tag number in the police report of the first victim.
With that information, Popp quickly identified Ray and provided the victims with a photo line-up. Three of the four women identified Ray as their attacker. The first victim, who had memorized the tag number, was unable to make an identification and did not testify at trial.
About the Author
