Jurors to get sex assault case

WEST CHESTER >> The Common Pleas Court jury hearing the case of a Bucks County man accused of sexually assaulting a Lancaster County woman in her borough apartment while they were both college students is set to hear closing statements from the attorneys in the case and legal instructions from the judge presiding over the trial Monday.

The panel of nine men and three women last week heard conflicting accounts of what transpired three years ago after the two met at a bar in West Chester, drank together, and eventually wound up at the off-campus apartment the woman shared with three roommates. The woman contends that she was forced to have oral sex with the man, while he contends that no such act occurred and that whatever foreplay they engaged in was consensual.

Bryce Emery, 24, of New Hope is charged with sexual assault, strangulation, indecent assault and involuntary deviate sexual intercourse. Charges of rape by forcible compulsion and rape of an unconscious person were withdrawn by the prosecution at the start of the trial before Judge Ann Marie Wheatcraft Monday.

The prosecution, led by Assistant District Attorneys Jessica Acito and Robert Goggin, and the defense, led by attorneys Caroline Donato and Peter Kratsa of the West Chester firm of MacElree Harvey, will present their case to the jurors in the morning. The panel is expected to get the case for deliberations in the afternoon.

Emery, who testified on Friday, was a senior at the University of Delaware in November 2019 when he visited friends from high school who were students at West Chester University. They went to a bar on West Gay Street where he met the woman, who was roommates with one of Emery’s friends’ girlfriend.

The woman, whose name is be

ing withheld by the Daily Local News because of the nature of the charges against Emery, was in her junior year at West Chester, where she graduated from, and who now works at a nursing assistant.

She testified that she and Emery went back to her apartment on Mechanics Alley in the early morning hours of Nov. 17, 2019, so that he would have a place to stay in the borough after having had several drinks. But she told the jury that at the outset, she made it clear she was not interested in having sex, even though the two had flirted at the bar.

“I let him know I was on my period, and that we were just going back to hang out,” she said, under questioning from Acito on Wednesday. “I wanted to let him know I was not into doing anything. I was not interested in having a sexual encounter at that point in my life.”

After sharing Pina Coladas and listening to music — the woman said she also smoked marijuana in her room — the two wound up in her bedroom kissing. But at some point, she said, she was “over it,” and said she wanted to go to sleep.

She allowed him to stay in her bed, and he began to become more aggressive in touching her.

When he tried to pull her sweater over her head, she resisted and told him to stop, she said, But he climbed on top of her and took down his pants. “It happened fast,” she said in her testimony. “It was very quick. I just kept telling him to stop. I was tired.” She said he put his penis in her mouth, and she had trouble breathing as he grasped her throat.

“I remember thinking, ‘Just get it over with and he’ll leave.’ ” She said she “saw stars,” but did not pass out. At some point, he stopped, and she rolled over and fell asleep.”

The account given by Emery in his testimony was markedly different.

The woman had not mentioned being on her period, and it was he who hesitated about having any sexual encounter that night because he felt too intoxicated after drinking heavily before and while he was at the bar, he told Donato during her questioning. But they kissed while there and began to be intimate back at her apartment, with the woman a willing participant.

In her bed together, she took off her sweater and he removed his shirt and pants “We were just making out,” he said. “I felt like we were both into it. She was very receptive.” But when he began kissing between her legs, he realized that she was menstruating, and stopped. “I told

her I was going to the bathroom.”

In the bathroom, however, he said he slipped and fell, and his head struck the wall, punching a hole in it. One of the woman’s roommates, however, said she heard the sound of the bathroom wall being punched, and the jurors saw police photos of two holes in the drywall, one large and one small. The roommate testified she woke up, tried unsuccessfully to awaken the woman, and then ordered Emery — who had a towel wrapped around him — to leave the apartment.

The following day, the woman reported what she said had happened to her to West Chester police, who eventually set up a phone intercept with her in which she texted back and forth with Emery.

“I just want to apologize for the way I acted,” Emery wrote at the outset. “I drank way more than I

should have and I got out of hand.”

“You knew I didn’t want to have sex with you,” the woman replied. “That’s what I want to talk about.”

“I had no idea what happened,”

Emery replied. “If that actually happened, I am so sorry. I’m not happy with myself about this. I’ve never been in a situation like this.”

In his testimony, Emery told the jury that his statement about not remembering what had happened that night was not truthful. He recalled the entire

incident but did not want to get into a confrontation with the woman. His apologies were directed at the damage to the bathroom wall.

“Did you strangle her?” Donato asked him in her direct examination. “No,” he answered. “Did you ever put your penis in her mouth?” No, he replied again. “Was your underwear ever off during that night?” She asked. He said it was not.

The woman, who was on the witness stand for more than two hours, told Acito that the months since the incident had been hard on her emotionally, having to tell what happened to her again and again.

“It’s been a long path,” she said. “It is something I tried to push out of my mind. There are a lot of places I would rather be than doing this. I would much rather not be here.”

To contact staff writer Michael P. Rellahan cal 610-696-1544.

Bryce Emery