A CD vendor who claimed he was set up and charged with rape after refusing to give money to a female friend, was acquitted yesterday. The man, of Upper Wharton Street, Laventille, was all smiles after he was found not guilty by a nine-member jury. The jury took just one hour and fifteen minutes to deliberate, before returning with the verdict before Justice Andre Mon Desir in the Port-of-Spain Fifth Criminal Court. The State's main witness, a Belmont woman who was 17 years old at the time of the alleged offence, had claimed she was lured to the man's home and raped.
It was October 24, 2005 and she had gone to Port-of-Spain to run some errands when she was approached by the accused. She told investigators she was lured to the man's home by the promise of free shoes he claimed he sold. She said on arrival at Wharton Street, she was taken to a house where the man put a cutlass to her neck and raped her. But in his defence, the accused said he had known the woman for two weeks before and the relationship turned sour when he had only given her $200 to pretty herself for a "Sizzla" concert. George Busby and Jennifer Martin prosecuted, while Lyndon Leu appeared for the defence.