Roommate: ‘It was a bad feeling’

WEST CHESTER >> One of the women who lived at a borough apartment that authorities contend was the scene of a rape involving a cadet at West Point and a West Chester University student testified Wednesday that what she saw that night left her uneasy.

“My instinct about the whole thing was that it was a little dangerous,” said Nora Hughes, who lived with three other women at the house on South High Street, along with the alleged victim in the case and a friend of Tyler Hogan Lampe, the defendant. “It was a bad feeling.”

What she referred to was the image of walking into her room-

mate’s bedroom and seeing a naked Lampe on top of the woman, thrusting his hips and obviously having sex, while her roommate lay on her back, eyes closed, making unintelligible noises.

Moreover, Hughes told the jury hearing the case in Judge Patrick Carmody’s courtroom that a friend of Lampe’s had much the same reaction, and that he told another friend during a hurried phone call after witnessing it that Lampe had “raped” the woman.

“Jake (Myers) was really freaking out,” Hughes remembered of the scene that night. “He told the (other) kid, ‘Tyler just raped (the woman).’ The kid laughed, but Jake said, ‘No, really.’”

The testimony from Hughes, now a WCU grad who lives in New Jersey, came on the third day of Lampe’s trial on charges of rape by forcible compulsion, rape of an unconscious person, sexual assault, indecent assault, and aggravated indecent assault. He has pleaded not guilty, and his attorneys have contended that what occurred between him and the woman was consensual sex between two intoxicated young people.

Lampe, 22, of Gettysburg has been free on bail since his arrest in July 2016, four months after the alleged assault. A former member of the West Point Black Knights football team at the U.S. Military Academy, he is currently on administrative leave from the prestigious school, until the legal proceedings involving him are completed. A spokesman said Tuesday that the school’s leadership “has not yet determined what action, if any, will be taken against the cadet.”

Hughes’ testimony on direct examination by Assistant District Attorney Alexis Shaw largely supported the account that the woman, whose name is being withheld by the Daily Local News because of the nature of the charges, gave during her testimony Tuesday. It also contradicted that of Myers, who said on the witness stand that he never considered what occurred an assault, and that it was Hughes who on her own raised the issue of whether it was rape. “It was consensual,” Myers said.

On cross-examination by attorney Peter Kratsa, one of Lampe’s defense team, Hughes said she was “100 percent certain” that Myers had described what he saw happening that night as assault, and not consensual sex. “Jake definitely told (his friend) that Tyler raped (the woman,)” she told Kratsa.

She acknowledged that she and Myers, once a fellow student at WCU, were no longer friendly. Additionally, she said that she and another roommate involved in the matter, Allison Tomassini, were no longer close. Tomassini was the woman who had invited Lampe to visit WCU from West Point the night of St. Patrick’s Day 2016, when the incident took place.

According to Hughes’ testimony, she and Tomassini were home with the alleged victim the night of March 17, 2016, when Lampe, Myers, and a third man came to their apartment. The three men, friends with Tomassini from Gettysburg, were planning to attend a fraternity party that night, and the woman was also planning to go out to party with one of her sorority sisters.

During the night, Hughes, Tomassini and the woman exchanged text messages about Lampe, who Tomassini was interested in. She had warned the other two to “steer clear of him,” Hughes said because she wanted to “hook up” with him.

In the text, Tomassini wrote that Lampe, “said if he didn’t smash anyone he might try to get with (the woman). He’s been staring.” The woman responded negatively towards Lampe, and Hughes told Tomassini that she should not be with someone like that. “You do not need a guy who is going to settle for you,” she wrote.

The woman returned home sometime after midnight with her friend, who had had too much to drink, and put her to bed. Hughes said she had stayed in that night because she had to study for a test the following day, but later got out of bed to find the woman, who was also intoxicated, lying in a hallway outside the apartment of a neighbor who she was dating offand-on.

Hughes took the woman to her bedroom on the third floor of the house, and put her to bed, fully clothed. “She rolled over and went to sleep,” Hughes said. Later, Lampe came back and went to Tomassini’s room, forcing Hughes to abandon her room and go downstairs to the living room with her comforter to try to get some sleep. “I thought Allison was going to hook up with him,” she said.

But some time later Hughes awoke to hear Myers, who was in the living room with her, talking to Tomassini on the phone. She could hear Tomiasini crying, and said that Myers seemed panicked. He ran upstairs to check on Tomassini, who pointed to the room across the hall from hers, where the woman lived.

“He walked in,” Hughes testified. “It was really quick. I think he walked in a few feet and just stopped. We both just kind of froze. We saw Tyler on top of (the woman). I just yelled at him.” She pushed Myers and said he grabbed Lampe to pull him away, and out of the room.

Hughes said she went over to the woman, who opened her eyes and looked around, “like, ‘What is everybody doing in my room.’ She looked at me like a zombie.’”

In his cross-examination, Kratsa noted a number of discrepancies between what Hughes testified to on the witness stand and what she had told police and prosecutors in statements she gave the day of the incident and, much later, in March 2018.

Wasn’t it true that she wasn’t entirely sure of the details she had testified to, he asked? “No, that’s not true,” she said.

The defense is expected to begin its case on Thursday.

To contact Staff Writer Michael P. Rellahan call 610-696-1544.

Tyler Hogan Lampe