A Phelps County jury returned a not-guilty verdict Thursday evening for a Waynesville man accused of multiple sex crimes in connection with his 2008 arrest.
David H. Lee, 60, was arrested in July 2008 and charged with two counts of forcible rape, two counts of forcible sodomy, armed criminal action and felonious restraint in connection with allegations that he held a 23-year-old military wife against her will at his house while the crimes were committed.
Lee did not comment after the trial, other than to say he had been incarcerated for almost two years.
After hearing the not-guilty verdict on all six offenses, the alleged victim was found huddled on the floor of the courthouse lobby, sobbing in the arms of her husband, who had been deployed to Iraq at the time she claimed to have been attacked by Lee.
Obviously distraught, the woman did not comment on the verdict, but her husband did.
“Protect your daughters,” he said.
Commenting after the verdict came in, Assistant Public Defender Thomas Florek said, “I am happy because my client is happy. He’s relieved to have this two-year ordeal behind him.
“Ms. Hooper did a fantastic job, but the system worked, and the jury was able to see the truth,” Florek said.
Pulaski County Prosecuting Attorney Deborah Hooper appeared stunned by the verdict.
“Sadly, the jury decided the verdict based upon the evidence placed before them,” Hooper said. “Apparently, they did not believe the victim.”
Hooper also commended the work of all the law-enforcement investigators who collected evidence for the trial.
Evidence introduced by Hooper included testimony from six witnesses — officers involved in the investigation and other criminologists — and the alleged victim.
In contrast, Lee’s defense counsel called no witnesses to the stand, and Lee did not testify on his own behalf.
Testifying in court, the alleged victim gave a graphic account of how Lee had held a gun to neck, she claimed, and raped and sodomized her two times during an 18-hour period when she was held against her will at his home.
She also claimed Lee told her he would kill her, place her body in a body bag and sink it in the Gasconade River, unless she convinced him she wouldn’t report him to the police.
While cross-examining the alleged victim during Wednesday’s portion of the trial, Florek attempted to extract information from her that would persuade jurors she concocted the rape in an attempt to get her husband returned from Iraq.
The woman refuted the allegation and said, “No, I didn’t make-up the rape so my husband could come home.”
During his closing statement, Florek told jurors their decision should be based upon logic.
Citing the lack of concern by the woman’s relatives when she did not return home, Florek said, “Is it logical for someone to be gone for 18 hours without someone going to look for them?
“Is it logical her car was parked normally (at her home), with the doors locked, the lights turned off?” he rhetorically asked jurors, referencing the fact the woman had immediately driven home after the alleged attack.
“(She) supposedly made an escape — she ran out the door. When asked why she didn’t run before, she answered because she was naked. It doesn’t matter, any normal person would’ve escaped at the first opportunity.
“Why did (she) have sex with a man three times older than her husband? She was lonely, and she wanted to get her husband home,” Florek said, claiming it was consensual sex and not rape.
Florek also cited the lack of any DNA evidence in Lee’s house and a medical report that did not corroborate the woman’s claim that Lee choked her.
In her closing statement, Hooper cautioned jurors not to become confused by the defense’s “smoke.” She reminded jurors of the evidence found during the initial investigation, including a loaded black and silver gun the woman described to police, which was later found hidden in a bag inside a trash can on the outside of Lee’s home.
“(She) said he took the bullets out and put the gun in her hand so she could feel the weapon he would use to kill her,” Hooper said.
“This wasn’t made up so her husband could come back from Iraq — that’s absolutely ridiculous. Don’t hold it against her because her husband was serving our country in Iraq,” Hooper told the jurors.
Citing the defense’s allegations that the woman only cried at the hospital when she mentioned needing to see her husband, Hooper told jurors, “This was a normal reaction for a normal wife, that she would want her husband to come home afterward.”
Just before Circuit Judge Tracy L. Storie sent the jury to deliberate the verdict, he instructed them on the precise definition of each offense charged against Lee and told them they must be convinced “beyond a reasonable doubt” of his guilt before rendering a guilty verdict.
The jury panel, comprised of five women and seven men, spent three hours and 35 minutes in deliberation before arriving at the verdict.
The jury was not informed of Lee’s prior convictions.
According to documents in the court’s case file, Lee pleaded guilty to sexual assault in Pulaski County in August 2003. He was convicted of shooting with the intent to kill in Comanche County, Okla., in July 1981. He was convicted of three offenses in Greer County, Okla., in December 1986, inclusive of escaping from a state penitentiary, kidnapping and robbery with a firearm. Two minor offenses of passing bad checks, to which he pleaded guilty, also were listed.
David H. Lee found not guilty
- Lee was found not guilty of sexual assault charges
- Lee, 60, was charged with two counts of forcible rape, two counts of forcible sodomy, armed criminal action and felonious restraint
- He faced those charges of a 23-year-old Soldier’s wife
