Ex-high school teacher says rape charge a lie

Is Curtis Shaw a good Samaritan who is being victimized by an opportunistic liar who claims he tried to rape her and that "all black men look the same"?

Or, as Kane County prosecutors argue, did he drive her to his house in hopes of having sex, and when she passed out try to have sex with her anyway?

Last September, the 56-year-old former West Aurora High School teacher picked up a Hillside woman along Diehl Road and agreed to take her to the Aurora train station. She had been out drinking after visiting her boyfriend in the DuPage County jail and missed her train in Winfield.

Shaw testified Monday that as he and the 53-year-old woman pulled into the station off Route 25, she said she wanted to repay him with a drink. So they bought a six-pack and went to his house, and she later felt ill. He invited her to lay down in his bed to watch TV before he drove her back to catch the late train.

Shaw said the woman disrobed while he had been brushing his teeth. He tried to wake her, but she said she wanted 15 more minutes of rest.

The woman finally left, Shaw testified, but refused a ride to the station.

Shaw said he was irritated, so he drove around for a while, figuring if he wasn't home she couldn't bother him. When he returned, police emerged from the bushes around his house.

"I was told (by police) a white girl was at the hospital and had charged me with rape," Shaw testified, adding that he panicked and initially lied to police, saying he just returned from Michigan. "I knew I tried to help someone who needed help, and now the tables were turned and she had called the police on me."

The woman had a different story. "I woke up naked, and I was laying on my stomach," the woman testified Monday, adding Shaw fondled her several times. "He was trying to pry my thighs open."

She said she tried to call 911 from his house, but they struggled over the phone. She went to a neighbor's home and called police, leaving her undergarments behind in his bed.

Defense attorney Charles Petersen said rape kit tests came back negative. Petersen pointed out numerous inconsistencies in the woman's testimony, such as her remembering she awoke at "dawn" when it was 11:45 at night, that Shaw offered her a mixed drink when they had beer and said Shaw was driving a white car when it was black.

She did not identify Shaw as her attacker until her second time on the witness stand. Under cross examination, the woman said to Petersen, "I'm starting to fall asleep. This is boring."

Aurora Police detective Samuel Ochoa, who questioned the woman, testified: "She told me that she was not racist, but all black men look the same to her."

The bench trial before Judge Timothy Sheldon is expected to conclude today.