‘Good Samaritan’ pleads guilty to rape

Police: Guilford woman assaulted repeatedly

BRIDGEPORT — A supposed Good Samaritan who said he beat and raped a Guilford woman after he rescued her from the throes of a winter storm is facing up to eight years in prison.

“I just want to apologize for bringing her to my house …that ruined my life,” Jefferson Sumpter told Superior Court Judge Robert Devlin.

The 49-year-old Sumpter pleaded guilty Friday to first-degree sexual assault and first-degree unlawful restraint as his case was about to go to trial.

“He claimed she agreed to have sex with him after he beat her four times in the head and choked her,” Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Joseph Harry told the judge.

Devlin said he would impose an eight-year prison term and probation on Sumpter when he is sentenced Sept. 21.

Police said on Feb. 1, 2015, officers were dispatched to Frankie’s Diner on Barnum Avenue for a report of an assault. When officers got there, they found the victim crying hysterically with red finger marks around her neck, police said.

The 66-year-old woman told detectives that she had taken the train to the city to visit a friend but had then gotten caught out in a storm.

Unable to get back to the train station and with no place to wait out the storm, police said, the woman went to the diner where she met Sumpter who offered to let her stay at his home until the storm cleared.

However, once they got into Sumpter’s house, police said Sumpter beat the woman about the head and pushed her onto a couch. When she tried to call for help, he ripped her cell phone from her hand, police said.

Police said Sumpter then began choking the woman until she nearly passed out. He ripped her clothes off and raped her repeatedly, police said.

After assaulting her, police said Sumpter let the woman go, telling her he loved her and hoped to see her again.

When detectives later confronted Sumpter, police said he admitted taking the woman into his home but denied raping her. Pressed on the woman’s claims, they said Sumpter told them, “You know I was drunk and might have said some things she didn’t like, you know.”

Asked if the woman could have thought he was forcing her to have sex with him, police said Sumpter responded, “Yeah, she might have. She may think that.”