A man accused of raping a UCLA student in 2002 was sentenced to
60 days in county jail Tuesday for a misdemeanor charge of sexual
battery.
DeShawn Stringer, 19, received the sentence for the misdemeanor
charge after he was convicted for squeezing the buttocks of another
woman on the same day he is accused of rape.
During Tuesday’s hearing, the retrial date for Stringer was also
set for Aug. 6 on charges of one count of forcible rape and
forcible oral copulation. If found guilty, Stringer faces a maximum
of 17 years in prison.
The prosecution of the new trial will be led by District
Attorney Scott Millington, who said he does not expect the trial to
start until Aug. 16.
Prosecutors announced they would retry Stringer last month when
a judge dismissed charges against two other men who had been
accused with the rape.
In a trial against the three men in May, jurors were deadlocked
on individual charges of forced rape and forced oral copulation. At
the same time, the defendants, Stringer, Chuwan Anthony and Jamar
Dawson were found not guilty on charges of collectively
contributing to forced rape, oral sex and burglary.
The deadlocked verdict against Stringer had been the closest of
the three in the previous trial, with jurors split 6-6 on his
charge of forced rape and 7-5 on that of forced oral sex. Seven
jurors had found Stringer guilty on the latter charge.
Attorneys of the dismissed defendants said they had expected the
ruling as the jury had deadlocked by an overwhelming 11-1 votes in
favor of the defendants in the May trial.
The three young men, then students of Carson High School, were
visiting UCLA on Dec. 5, 2002 on a field trip and separated from
their group. They proceeded into the accuser’s dorm room and had
sex and performed oral copulation with the woman, sometimes
concurrently.
The woman had testified during the May trial that she had said
"no" to Stringer, but had not said "no" or fought back during the
encounter with Dawson and Anthony.
Defense attorneys had maintained that their clients could have
had no indication of the woman’s resistance if she did not say
"no." But the prosecution had attributed the woman’s actions to
"frozen fright." Millington, who had been handed Stringer’s case
Tuesday after former prosecutor Alyson Messenger was placed on
maternity leave, said he does not like to make predictions about
trial outcomes.
But he said he has sufficient experience with the case as he was
an assistant to Messenger in the last trial.