Hoffman Estates rape trial could go to jury today
A jury could today decide the fate of a Streamwood man charged with raping a woman at gunpoint two years ago.
Jurors on Wednesday heard a second day of testimony, this time from police officers and forensic scientists, in the case against Jeryme Robert Morgan, who lived on the 200 block of Butternut Lane in Streamwood.
Morgan was 21 in May 2007 when he was arrested after authorities said he forced a woman at gunpoint into his green Lincoln Navigator and sexually assaulted her in the back seat in the early morning hours of April 21 at the parking lot of the Park Place Apartments in Hoffman Estates.
Authorities said Morgan later drove the woman to an ATM and made her withdraw money before she escaped and he drove off.
Morgan is charged with aggravated criminal sexual assault, armed robbery, aggravated battery and unlawful restraint.
Though investigators collected DNA evidence and shipped it to a crime lab in May 2007, seven months went by before forensic scientists at the state crime lab in Rockford unsealed the evidence and began to examine it, former crime lab scientist Cynthia Kale testified.
Investigators also collected DNA from the SUV and matched it to the victim, who is not expected to testify. There was also male DNA evidence found in the SUV, but forensic evidence weren't able to definitively match that to Morgan.
His attorney, public defender Deana Binstock, argued another man's DNA could have been masked in the sample analyzed at the crime lab.
An Elk Grove Village woman also testified Wednesday that a man matching Morgan's description had threatened her with the same gun nine days after the alleged rape, pointing it at her head outside her condo's garage. That's alleged to have happened April 30, 2007, the day before Morgan's arrest in the assault.
The Elk Grove Village woman said her attacker drove away in a green SUV after dragging her by the hair and shoving her to the ground. She later identified Morgan in a police lineup after his arrest on the rape charge.
Jurors also watched a police video of the traffic stop which led to Morgan's arrest in Mount Prospect. Mount Prospect Police Officer Dave Okon testified they found a BB gun - shown in court Wednesday - that resembled a revolver hidden in a secret compartment in Morgan's SUV, which was pulled over because the windows were illegally tinted. Morgan's alleged victims and the police first thought the gun was real.
Two Mount Prospect police officers also testified that Morgan undid the cornrows in his hair after he was pulled over so he wouldn't match the description of him that had been put out by law enforcement officials.
Cook County Circuit Court Judge John Scotillo said Wednesday he hoped the trial would go to the jury today.