West Point cadet held for rape trial

Tyler Lampe accused of sexually assaulting woman in West Chester

WEST CHESTER >> A West Chester University student on Tuesday testified that after a night on drinking on St. Patrick’s Day, she awoke in her bedroom to find a man she had met briefly only hours before was in bed with her, sexually assaulting her.

The woman, whose name is being withheld because of the nature of the criminal charges in the case, said that she had “kind of passed out” after drinking vodka and beer the night of the incident, and had spoken to the defendant, West Point cadet Tyler Hogan Lampe, just momentarily earlier that evening before finding him having sex with her.

Now a junior at the school, the woman said under questioning from First Assistant District Attorney Michael Noone that she woke up to the sound of another

man’s voice telling Lampe to “get off of her.” It was a friend of Lampe’s who was with one of her roommates, she said.

“When I woke up, I saw that Tyler was on top of me, and he was having sex with me,” the woman said in her direct testimony. She was naked, she said, although she had not taken off her clothes when she went to sleep.

When she went to bed, did she agree to have sex with Lampe, Noone asked, over the objection of the defense attorney, Arthur Donato? She had not, she replied, after Donato’s objection was overruled.

Lampe, 20, of Gettysburg was held for trial after the 30-minute preliminary hearing before Magisterial District Judge Mark Bruno of West Chester, who determined that the prosecution had provided sufficient evidence for the case to proceed to Common Pleas Court on all charges. He pleaded not guilty to the

charges.

Appearing in the courtroom in the Chester County Justice Center with Donato, co-counsel Peter Kratsa of West Chester, and his parents, Lampe did not speak during the hearing. He remains free on bail, charged with rape by forcible compulsion, rape of an unconscious person, sexual assault, aggravated indecent assault, and aggravated indecent assault of an unconscious person, all felonies, and misdemeanor indecent assault and indecent assault of an unconscious person.

A former member of the West Point Black Knights football team, Lampe was removed from the team after the charges against him were leveled, according to the school.

Donato, in his cross-examination of the woman, who was the only witness at the hearing, suggested strongly that the sex between her and Lampe had been consensual. He intimated that the woman had called Lampe “hot” in discussing the cadet with one of her roommates, who had confided in the woman that

she wanted to “hook up” with him that night.

The woman, however, testified that she was not interested in Lampe, even though she agreed with her friend that he was “good looking.”

The experience of testifying in open court clearly upset the woman. She kept her eyes cast downwards during her time on the stand, or closed them entirely, and only looked at Lampe once, when she was asked to identify him for the record. During a break in her testimony, she held back tears, and drew deep breaths, all the while clutching a water bottle. But she did not waver in her insistence that she had not had sex with Lampe willingly.

The woman told Noone that she had expected to drink the night of St. Patrick’s Day, both at home and at fraternity parties in the neighborhood. She had seven shots of vodka while in her house on South High Street, and later drank two or three beers at a fraternity party.

She said she met Lampe when he arrived at her house with friends, one of whom, Jake Myers, was a friend of one of her roommates. The two spoke only briefly before they left and she and a friend who was visiting her went to the party together. She said she did not go with Lampe or his friends.

She said that she had to come home early because her friend had become too intoxicated to walk by herself, and she put the friend to bed in the room she shared with another woman. “She was too drunk,” the woman said.

She went downstairs briefly, then put herself to bed, too intoxicated to stay awake, she testified. It was about 2 a.m. when she awoke to find Lampe, naked, in her room.

On cross-examination, however, the woman acknowledged that sometime before going to bed, she had been in a hallway, either sitting or lying down on the floor.

Donato asked whether she had discussed Lampe

with one of her roommates, and she said that she had. “She wanted to hook up with him” the woman said of her roommate. “She was excited to have him come over.” She said she knew he was a cadet at West Point, and that she and Lampe had “pleasant conversation” before they left for the fraternity parties.

But she denied having any contact with Lampe when she returned home, “hanging out in the living room” as Donato suggested. She also denied being in the hallway with Lampe before they were found in bed together. “I never saw him,” she testified.

The woman also told Donato that even though her roommate had warned her not to try to hook up with Lampe, she had no interest in pursuing him.

Several of Donato’s questions were aimed at determining what the woman had said after she awoke, or what she told police, but Noone objected to the questions

as improper because he had limited her direct testimony only to the point where Myers and the woman’s roommate found them.

In asking Bruno to dismiss the rape charges against his client, Donato argued that there was no testimony that any force was used, nor was there testimony that she was intoxicated to the point of unconsciousness at any point.

“What is present here is two 19-year-olds drinking and having sex,” he said.

But Noone responded that Lampe’s lying on top of the woman while having sex with her was enough to provide physical force at this stage of the case against him, and that the woman had herself admitted to having at least 10 alcohol drinks.

“She was passed out drunk,” Noone said. ”Your honor has to take that at face value.”

Tyler Hogan Lampe