Aurora woman testifies in criminal sexual assault trial
A woman prosecutors say is the victim of a criminal sexual assault in West Chicago testified Wednesday that an enjoyable night of drinking and dancing at her favorite bar took a tragic turn after she left her drink unattended for several minutes.
The woman, a 42-year-old mother of four adult children from Aurora, said she was catching up with friends at a popular Aurora bar on the night of March 2, 2013. At one point, the woman said, she went to dance and left her drink near one of her friends, who was talking to two men, including the man accused of assaulting her, Jose Ramirez-Alcantar.
Problems began, she said, when she retrieved the drink.
"I went to my table to sit down because I wasn't feeling good. I was feeling bad, like I was in the air or dizzy. I couldn't walk," she said through a Spanish interpreter.
She testified she drank a beer, a shot of tequila and a "blue drink" that includes several kinds of tequila, but that such a mixture typically would not affect her.
"I drink a lot. I drink a lot," she said. "But I always come out and remember everything."
On this night, however, she said her memory got "fuzzy" after she sat down at the table. She testified she doesn't remember anything until Ramirez-Alcantar and one of his roommates grabbed her and forced her into the back seat of a pickup truck and drove her to the home Ramirez-Alcantar shared with two other men on the 30W300 block of Pomeroy Street near West Chicago.
The woman said she does not remember going into the home or how she got on the floor in Ramirez-Alcantar's second-story bedroom.
Assistant Public Defender George Ford maintains there was no sexual assault, but the woman disagreed.
"I told him 'I don't want sex. I don't want sex," she testified. "But he held me down and said 'Let me do this. Let it happen.'"
Prosecutors say the two men made so much noise when they came home at 2:18 a.m. and kicked the front door in that the third man in the home called 911 to report an intruder.
West Chicago police officers who responded to the call testified they heard the woman's "faint cries" grow louder. After confirming what they heard with other officers, they kicked the bedroom door in and found Ramirez-Alcanter on top of the woman.
The woman testified she did not know officers were in the home until they kicked down the bedroom door.
"I saw the officer and I said 'He's my salvation,'" the woman said.
She was hospitalized and treated for wounds and bruising.
If found guilty by the 12-person jury hearing the case, Ramirez-Alcantar faces four to 15 years in prison. He previously was convicted of aggravated battery in Kane County.
His trial continues at 10 a.m. Thursday.