The Martin Firm - selected case information

LEDGER-ENQUIRER

LOCAL

Saturday, October 28, 2000

City man acquitted of rape

Jury finds Lekendrick T. Miles not guilty of all 11 charges

By Eileen Zaffiro Staff Writer

The 22-year-old Columbus man accused of raping a woman and threatening her and her two small children with a shotgun has been acquitted on all charges.

A Muscogee Superior Court jury found Lekendrick T. Miles not guilty of the 11 charges he was indicted on last month: aggravated sodomy, armed robbery; five counts of aggravated assault, possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime, two counts of burglary and sodomy.

Jurors in the case before Judge Frank Jordan heard two days of testimony and deliberated about an hour before returning their verdict Thursday evening, the one-year anniversary of Miles' arrest.

The 29-year-old woman said she was in bed just before midnight one night last fall when she awoke to a noise that came from the front of her home. She says she then saw a man standing above her holding a shotgun and donning a blue towel over his head.

She testified during this week's trial, prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Sam Merritt, that the

man pointed the gun at her as well as her two children, then ages 3 and 4. She says he threatened to kill them if she didn't cooperate and forced her into an adjacent room.

She said he raped and hit her several times and stole a small amount of cash. She said the towel fell from his head as he was leaving, and she recognized him as someone she had met a few weeks earlier.

The woman maintained she and Miles had talked only once before and that she kicked him out of her home when he propositioned her for sex. Miles, who has no felony convictions, agreed they did have only the one previous meeting. But he said she asked him to leave because he had no money for sex.

Miles, who was represented by attorney John Martin, testified that the two had consensual sex the October 1999 night the woman says he raped her. Miles said she became angry when he paid her only $5 for the sex.

An emergency room doctor testified that he saw no evidence the woman had been raped.

The only physical evidence that tied Miles to the alleged crime was his camouflage jacket, which police found in his home and the woman described her attacker as wearing, Martin said.