A‘ MASTER MANIPULATOR’
That’s what prosecutors say about tanning salon owner MarcWinner, who allegedly attacked 9 women since 2001
Opening statements took place Friday in the trial of Marc Winner, the 47- year- old former West Loop tanning salon owner described by authorities as a serial rapist who preyed on former employees and customers over nearly two decades, but whose attorneys claim was simply entangled in the “complicated” sexual interplay of Chicago’s nightlife scene.
In the first of four criminal sexual assault cases pending against Winner, Assistant State’s Attorney Mikki Miller described him as a “master manipulator” who dragged a suburban woman from his nowdefunct Soleil tanning salon to rape her in his condo in July 2009 — one of nine women whom Cook County prosecutors have claimed Winner attacked since 2001.
“Marc Winner is the kind of guy who comes off as pushy but seems harmless,” Miller said. “But that couldn’t be further from the truth.”
Defense attorney Steven Weinberg argued the case was about the “complicated world of interpersonal relationships between men and women.”
“What appeared to [ the alleged victim] as a good idea at one moment seemed like a bad idea at the next,” Weinberg said.
Prosecutors say Winner invited the alleged victim and her friend back to his condo on July 16, 2009, after bumping into them at a West Loop restaurant. Her friend testified Friday that they agreed to go there because they each had to use the bathroom.
The friend eventually left the alleged victim in the apartment after the other woman accepted cocaine offered to them byWinner, she said.
Prosecutors say that was when Winner snatched the woman’s phone and tried forcing her to have sex. The woman persuaded him to take them to his tanning salon across the street where she previously worked, Miller said, because she thought shewould be able to use a phone there to get help.
After the woman called her sister saying she was “about to be raped,” Winner dragged her back to the condo and forced her onto the bed, Miller said. In a last- ditch effort, the woman toldWinner she had a sexually transmitted disease, but he put on a condom and assaulted her anyway, Miller said.
Weinberg claimed Winner and the woman had called and texted each other numerous times in the weeks before that night.
“She’s not being truthful, or maybe she thinks she’s being truthful, but her perception is being altered by alcohol and cocaine,” Weinberg said.
Weinberg claimed that the alleged victim “became hysterical” and left the condo of her own accord, acknowledgingWinner had behaved in “not such a gentlemanly manner.”
Winner sat with furrowed brow through most of the hearing, once shaking his head when the friend on the stand recalled Winner claiming he had “every type of drug you could imagine” at his apartment.
In 2015, he was charged with raping a 26- year- old woman inside Soleil, charges that apparently rejuvenated the investigation into several other rape cases.
By 2016, Winner had been charged with raping four women between 2009 and 2015; three of the victims were either employees or customers at the tanning salon. He has been free from jail on electronic monitoring after posting bond.
Four other women who reported being assaulted by Winner also are set to testify during the bench trial in front of Judge Carol Howard; the allegations by those women were about incidents that happened too long ago for charges to be filed.
The trial is scheduled to resume Monday afternoon.
“MARCWINNER IS THE KIND OF GUYWHO COMES OFF AS PUSHY BUT SEEMS HARMLESS. BUT THAT COULDN’T BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH.” MIKKI MILLER, assistant state’s attorney