Champaign man convicted of sexual assault, acquitted of gun charge

URBANA – A Champaign man has been found guilty of sexual assault after testifying that he had sex with a woman the night she accused him of rape.

After about an hour of deliberation, the jury found 25-year-old Eugene Joiner guilty of two counts of aggravated sexual assault. These charges were considered aggravated due to the bodily injury suffered by the victim.

The jury found Joiner not guilty of two counts of sexual assault with a firearm.

Joiner took the stand Thursday after extensive discussions with his lawyer about whether he should do so, and for the first time he stated that he actually had intercourse with his accuser on the night she said he raped her.

He agreed with most of the woman’s account that she met her late at night and was walking around the neighborhood, but he denied forcing her to perform any sexual acts or hitting her in any way, which caused the injuries she sustained when police arrived at her home.

Joiner also suggested that their previous encounter, which both parties had previously described as hanging out and having consensual sex, actually took place without their consent.

He claimed that during the first encounter, which took place about two weeks before the March 17 incident for which he was on trial, he consumed alcohol and marijuana and decided to stay the night because something about the marijuana made him feel strange.

Joiner said that when he woke up the next morning, he asked what happened the night and the woman told him they had sex without a condom and she wasn’t using contraceptives.

He also said he didn’t have a gun.

Assistant State’s Attorney Chris McCallum said investigators did not find a firearm on Joiner.

In court Thursday, public defender Janie Miller-Jones presented police body camera footage of the victim in the hospital the night of the attack, saying she heard the rattling of the alleged firearm and recalled thinking it wasn’t a real gun when Joiner he allegedly aimed at her head.

When arrested a month after the incident and during subsequent interviews with police, Joiner said he did not know the victim, and later confirmed that they met on the Internet, had sex and went out to eat.

In his testimony, Joiner told the jury he meant he had met her but didn’t know her very well.

McCallum chose not to question him.

Before Joiner’s testimony, McCallum called his final witness, a Champaign police detective who specializes in sex crimes and was the lead detective on the case, presented the remaining evidence, and then put the case on hold.

The evidence included photos of the backyard where the victim said the assault occurred, as well as the house where she said she was pushed. When police examined the scene on March 19, handprints were visible on the window.

The victim claimed there would be blood all over the scene from his injuries, but police found no blood, which Miller-Jones said suggested an inconsistency in the victim’s testimony.

But McCallum said the woman could have been wrong because the attack happened late at night or the rain could have washed away the blood.

Miller-Jones criticized some police behavior during her closing arguments, saying Joiner was unwilling to answer honestly because investigators repeatedly accused him of lying and claimed his accuser had evidence of everything she said.

“I think she forgot good cop for her bad cop routine,” Miller-Jones said of one detective.

McCallum highlighted many inconsistencies in Joiner’s account of that night, especially after reviewing the evidence against him.

Regardless, he found that most of the remaining evidence was rendered irrelevant due to the DNA found on the victim, which a forensic analyst said was 9 quadrillion times more likely to belong to Joiner than anyone else.

“Did the DNA fairy come down and spray the place? I don’t think so, people, because it’s unrealistic,” he said.

Joiner faces 12 to 60 years in prison when he is sentenced on February 18.