A pre-sentence investigation will be conducted and he will be sentenced at a later date. He faces up to 10 years in jail.
Shafer said on the three occasions he was with the Deerfield Twp. girl — who told him she was 17 years old — they had sex, one time was behind the old Walmart store in Lebanon. On the night in question he said having sex was her idea.
“She said she wanted to have sex,” he said. “She took me into her room, I sat down on her bed and she got on top of me and started kissing me and it went from there.”
The victim testified Shafer accosted her in her bedroom. During tearful testimony Thursday, she said he threw her down on the bed, pinned her arms down and raped her.
During closing arguments, defense attorney Paris Ellis said the victim cried rape because her father came while they were in her bedroom and she knew she would be in trouble. House rules were no boys in the home unless her parents are home.
“Can I explain why a person would tell something that terrible if it wasn’t true? No, I can’t explain that to you, I’m not sure a psychiatrist could... From my point of view, she was busted, she was desperate, she’s got to say something. She comes out of the bathroom and says Daddy I was raped. The pressure’s off from breaking a rule isn’t it.”
Assistant Prosecutor Mel Planas said it is absurd to believe she would have wrongly accused Shafer of a serious crime just to avoid punishment.
“The defense wants to claim that she came up with the accusation of rape because she was in a tight spot,” he said. “What penalties was she facing had she fessed up that she had a boy in the room? She would have been grounded. If you weigh grounding against this ordeal, I think it’s beyond common sense to think that this is the route she chose to keep from being grounded.”
The victim could have recanted her story, according to Assistant Prosecutor Matt Nolan. She would have avoided the invasive rape examination at the hospital, the numerous interviews with police and prosecutors and the ridicule she says she has suffered as school.
“It would have been convenient for her, she could have made this all go away,” he said. “She could have just walked away and this would have all ended, but it wouldn’t have ended because she has to live with memory of being raped.”
Contact this reporter at (513) 696-4525 or dcallahan@coxohio.com.
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