Woman helps nab sister’s alleged rapist

NORRISTOWN>> Prosecutors called a Norristown woman a hero for chasing down the man who she believed was having sex with her younger sister from the age of 11.

The victim’s sister testified Thursday in the trial of Jamal Alston, 39, of Philadelphia, who is charged with six counts of rape of a child and multiple related felonies for an alleged sexual relationship with the victim that lasted nearly four years.

The sister said on the stand that she became aware of an inappropriate relationship when another family member showed her the victim’s Facebook account and messages with someone who went by the username “Licky Tab.”

“I put two and two together that he was not a teenager because of the way he was carrying on the conversation,” the sister said.

In May 2013, the sister came up witha plan, alongwith other family members, to find “Licky Tab.” She took over the victim’s Facebook account and began to carry onthe conversation, as if she were the victim, to set up a meeting.

“Reading the messages made me feel like whoever it was was controlling her,” she said.

The day of themeeting, “Licky Tab” sent directions for the victim to meet him near her home in Norristown. Instead, the victim’s sister looked out of the door and “immediately made eye contact,” she said, with a man in a silver Honda parked in a nearby lot.

The sister then described getting into a car with her brotherin-law to follow the man, who sped off after they made eye contact. What followed, she said, “was as if I was in a car chase.” They followed the Honda, which was maneuvered down an alley and was lost.

The victim’s sister then used Facebook GPS locator services to find out the area from where many of the messages were sent. She brought her sister to the area, and spotted the same silver Honda and license plate that she had followed earlier and called police, she said.

It was then that the victim tearfully broke down and told her everything that allegedly happened with Jamal Alston since shewas 11, her sister testified.

“She was my family, and she didn’t have nobody who cared about her,” the sister testified, sobbing. “I let her know everything was going to be all right.”

The defense began to present evidence Thursday. In opening statements the defense said that Alston was not the man who went by the username “Licky Tab.” Defense attorney Nicholas Reifsnyder said that pinning the crimes on Alston was “engineered by two very disturbed young people,” meaning the victim and her sister.

Alston was arrested in 2013, when he was 36 years old, shortly after the victim’s family reported the sexual assault and police executed a search warrant for his laptop, phone and other items. When police arrived with the search warrant, prosecutors said Alston was not home, and the phone was disabled within a day.

According to the arrest affidavit, the victim reported having sex with the defendant more than a dozen times over about four years.