by Emily Darrell
Staff Writer

* The Powhatan Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office will retry this case. Henry Page Jr. will appear back in Powhatan Circuit Court for another jury trial on April 26, 2012 at 9 a.m.

          In Powhatan Circuit Court last week, after nearly two hours of deliberation, the jury trying 22-year-old Henrico man Henry Page Jr. could not reach a consensus as to whether Page had committed rape against a 27-year-old woman in September of 2010.

The alleged victim, who was often referred to in court by her initials, L.E., believes she was raped not only by Page, but also by two other young men: Etholian Eli Barnes, of Richmond, and Andre Jackson, of Powhatan.

The incident occurred at a house party on Maidens Road, during which, the prosecution alleged, the three men had sexual relations with L.E. after she had passed out from consuming too much alcohol.

Page and Barnes were employed at the Powhatan County Fair at the time of the incident, and had been invited to the house party by L.E.’s friend’s brother, who also worked at the fair. The Fair Association came under some fire after it was discovered that Page was a convicted sex offender. (In 2009 Page was convicted in Henrico Circuit Court of carnal knowledge of a child aged 13 to 15.)

Prior to evening of the party, L.E. claims she had never met Barnes, Jackson, or Page.

The prosecuting attorney in Page’s case, Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Richard Cox, told the jury in his opening statement that the case was a “simple” one. L.E., Cox told them, was far too intoxicated the evening of the alleged rape to consent to sexual relations. Cox also said that Page had confessed to law enforcement that he’d had relations with L.E, and that in this confession Page had also admitted that during the encounter L.E. couldn’t open her eyes, couldn’t speak intelligibly, and appeared to him to have alcohol poisoning.

“You can’t give consent when you’re passed out drunk, you can’t speak and you can’t open your eyes,” Cox said in his opening statement. “It’s as simple as that.”

Over the course of the next several hours, however, the defense attorney, Terry Marsh, did everything in his power to poke holes in Cox’s argument, attempting to make the case appear anything but simple.

Marsh questioned whether L.E. was actually as intoxicated as she claimed, at one point stating that L.E. “obviously has quite a tolerance for alcohol.”(According to L.E.’s own testimony, and that of several witnesses, she consumed around half a large bottle of Burnett’s Strawberry Vodka that evening. She also said that she was not generally a heavy-drinker.)

Marsh questioned the integrity of the police work that led to Page’s confession, hinting that perhaps Lieutenant Kevin Wolfe, the Powhatan Sherriff’s Office investigator who apprehended and interviewed Page after the incident, had taken poor notes of the interview. He also hinted that Wolfe’s notes could have been tampered with.

Marsh brought up L.E.’s flirtatious behavior towards several of the other young men at the party, and made frequent mention of a “hickey contest” that L.E. had participated in.

Perhaps Marsh’s strongest piece of evidence was the testimony of Thomas Rimmer, who lived at the house where the alleged rapes occurred, and who claimed that he had seen L.E. having intercourse with each of the three men and that she appeared fully conscious and seemed to be enjoying herself.

According to Wolfe and Cox, Rimmers’s statement differed from the one that he had originally given, during which he claimed he had been asleep at the time the alleged rapes occurred. 

“There’s no simpler way to put it. He’s a liar,” Cox said, as means of explaining how Rimmer’s story had changed.

The fact that the jury did not reach a guilty verdict is not especially surprising as rape cases are generally considered difficult to prosecute, and rape cases where the victim is drunk are even harder still.

“There is always the issue of ‘Is that consent?’ or “Is that not consent?’” said Nikki Clarke, former Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney for Henrico, in reference to cases where the alleged rape victim is intoxicated.

Clarke also said there are some jurors who will hold drunkenness against a woman, feeling that in some way it means “she’s asking for it.”

Because the 12-memebr jury did not reach a verdict, the case was declared a mistrial. According to Darrell Elder, spokesperson for the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office, the prosecution intends to retry the case.

In November a judge acquitted Barnes, finding him not guilty of rape; Jackson’s case has not yet gone to trial.

Page is currently being held without bond and will appear before the grand jury on February 14.