Frimpong found guilty of rape

BY COLBY FRAZIER
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

Former UC Santa Barbara men’s soccer player Eric Frimpong was found guilty yesterday by a Santa Barbara County jury for the rape of a 19-year-old female student.

The verdict came after less than eight hours of deliberations by the jury of nine women and three men. After it was read, Judge Brian Hill revoked Frimpong’s bail and ordered he be taken into custody, an official in the District Attorney’s Office said.
With the verdict, Frimpong, who turned 22 last Friday, could face as many as eight years in prison.
The jury found Frimpong, who is from Ghana, not guilty of sexual battery, which a second 19-year-old student said occurred just weeks before the Feb. 17 rape on the same Isla Vista beach.
The verdict by the jury came after a three-week trial that saw testimony from 31 prosecution witnesses and one defense witness. The trial wrapped up last Friday after Frimpong’s defense attorney Robert Sanger and Deputy District Attorney Mary Barron gave several hours of heated closing arguments.
Of much bearing for both sides was that none of Frimpong’s DNA was found on or inside of the victim, but her DNA was found on his genitals.
As the two sides stood at a podium and delivered their closing statements last Friday, the victim could be seen wiping tears away from her eyes.
“This is about every young woman’s nightmare and you now know why,” Barron told the jury. “There’s no question [the alleged victim] was raped. [She] told you who did it. He’s right there.”
The victim said she met Frimpong at a late-night party and went back to his house on Del Playa Drive, where the two played beer pong and later went down to the beach, where she said Frimpong unleashed a viscous attack, biting her on the cheek and buttocks and forcefully raping her.
During his closing statements, Sanger asked the jury why a violent rapist would take a girl to his home, introduce her to his roommates, tell her his name, the country he is from and then rape her.
Sanger emphasized that the woman’s blood alcohol level when tested at 5:37 a.m. was .20. The legal threshold used by police to determine if someone is too intoxicated to drive is .08.
Sanger showed the jury a graph constructed by the California Department of Justice lab in Goleta that indicated the woman’s blood alcohol level could have been as high as .31 at the time of the incident – a level Sanger called “life threatening.”
Sanger’s lone witness was Dean Warden, a criminologist for the DOJ, whose testimony verified the woman’s blood alcohol level.
Sanger told the jury Friday he called only one witness because he was sure the jury would do the right thing and see through the prosecution’s case.
“We’re resting this evidence that is unfortunately so faulty,” Sanger said. “Rather than being obligated to do anything else, we’re not… We’re asking you (the jury) to do the right thing.”
Barron saw things differently.
“The evidence in this case is unrelenting,” Barron said Friday. “And it will lead you to the correct conclusion.”
Neither Barron nor Sanger immediately returned phone calls to the Daily Sound.