Mon, Jul 06 2009
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Published July 25, 2007 07:23 am - JEFFERSON - - Jeffery Johnson, 34, of Rome Township, sat quietly Tuesday on the first day of his rape trial, listening as a 13-year-old male ... Teen boy testifies to being raped repeatedly by mother's boyfriend DORIS COOK Star Beacon JEFFERSON - - Jeffery Johnson, 34, of Rome Township, sat quietly Tuesday on the first day of his rape trial, listening as a 13-year-old male testified to hundreds of acts of sodomy allegedly having been committed against him by the defendant over the course of more than three years.
Johnson is charged with one count of kidnapping, five counts of rape and one count of intimidation of the victim. Johnson has been held in county jail without bond since February 2006, when he was indicted on the charges by a county grand jury. The jury trial is being held before Common Pleas Court Judge Ronald Vettel. Johnson is being represented by court-appointed lawyer David PerDue. He was represented during the pretrial last year by public defender Marie Lane, who later withdrew from the case. The young victim resumes his testimony today under questioning by PerDue. Assistant county prosecutor Bruce Bennett is expected to call two other state witnesses: the boy's mother, Peggy Mares, and his maternal grandmother, Delores Mares. The courtroom was crowded with members of a tri-county child advocacy group known as the Bikers Against Child Abuse. About a dozen members sat quietly in their seats, their presence objected to by PerDue before the trial began. At a suppression-of-evidence hearing earlier this year, Vettel granted PerDue's motion not to allow certain state's evidence, including Johnson's having kept weapons in his apartment, his personal computer's contents and several law-enforcement officers statements. The young teen was on the stand for several hours as the state's first witness. Bennett questioned the boy as to when Johnson began molesting him. The victim told the court that Johnson began molesting him in January 2002 after he and his mother moved into Johnson's Jefferson Village duplex apartment. The boy was 7-1/2 when they moved in. The mother had met Johnson in an Internet chat room before moving in with him. Johnson's apartment was across from the Jefferson Police Department. During the family's stay in Jefferson, the victim attended the local schools. Prior to living with his mother and Johnson, the witness had lived with a maternal grandmother for several years. The 13-year-old testified under direct and cross-examination that Johnson had threatened to "shoot him" if he told anyone about the molestations. Many of the allegations against Johnson did not surface until Peggy Mares left Johnson and took her son back to live with the grandmother. Family members began to question him about events and then sought help for him at the Child Advocacy Center in Youngstown and Ravenwood Mental Health Center in Geauga County. Asked by both Bennett and PerDue as to why he didn't go to police or tell a family member, the boy responded: "I was scared to tell anyone, as they wouldn't believe me. I was only eight (then)." The teen told jurors that when Johnson performed oral and anal sex on him, the defendant took along a Jennings semiautomatic pistol to the locked bathroom, where most of the sex acts allegedly occurred. The teen refused to wilt under PerDue's direct questions when he was grilled him as to the exact dates when the sexual activity took place or whether he just was "making up stories on Johnson." PerDue also asked whether the boy "disliked Johnson" for any reason. 
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