5 girls tell of rape by attorney

May 6 , 2007

Adapted from the Philadelphia Daily News

A defense lawyer is being held on $25 million bail based on the testimony of five girls who said he got them to touch him. The girls also said he sometimes he raped them.

He knew them in some way. He took them shopping. Most called him "godfather."

He allegedly raped the girls or had them rub his private parts at various venues—a criminal justice center, a motel, his city offices, at a bank. Afterward, he sometimes gave the girls up to $200, they testified.

The youngest girl he is accused of raping was 5.

Yesterday, the 49-year-old man faced five separate preliminary hearings on sexual-assault or indecent-assault-related charges.

A few months ago, he was held for trial on rape, sexual assault and other charges in the case of a 14-year-old girl with whom he was caught naked in the lawyers' lounge at a criminal justice center on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

Two of the five girls who testified yesterday are sisters of the 14-year-old. A third is a cousin.

The two other girls are sisters whose mother had dated him. The mother had two younger children with him.

In a quiet courtroom yesterday, the girl who was 5 when the man allegedly preyed on her relayed her disturbing encounters.

Now 11, she said the man had taken her to what she thought was an office and an apartment. "He would tell me to take off my clothes" in the apartment, she testified. "He would take off his."

"He would tell me to lie down on the bed. . . . He would touch me in improper places - my chest, my vagina and my butt."

The man, she testified under questioning by the assistant district attorney, penetrated her vaginally and anally.

This type of thing happened "more than five times," she said.

At least once afterward "he would take me to the store and buy books and school supplies," she testified.

The girl's sister, now 17, said she knew the man when she was 10 to 13 years old: "We went to Blockbuster, we went on helicopter rides, we went shopping."

The man, she said, invited her to watch him as he worked as a defense attorney at the criminal justice center. He also took her to the third-floor lawyers' lounge, where he asked her to put on her new jeans, shirts, skirts or shorts.

He told her to sit on his lap and touch him, she testified.

Later, when she was 16, the teen testified that her mother asked her to go to the criminal justice center to get money from him, presumably for child support for his two biological kids.

This time, she testified, the man took her to the lawyers' lounge and "pushed me on this chair and performed oral sex" on her. Then, after she fell onto the floor, he allegedly "forced himself inside me," penetrating her, she said as her voice quivered.

Afterward, he "gave me $200," which she gave to her mother, the teen testified.

One sister, now 16, testified under questioning by an assistant district attorney that when she was 14, the man took her to a motel.

"He told me to take all my clothes off," she said. "I was scared. He first started rubbing on my breasts with his hands. Then he started sucking on my breasts. Then he put his penis in my vagina. He told me it was nothing to be scared of. . . . After, we went to the bank. He gave me $100."

He took her to a different motel another time when she asked for $180 to get braids in her hair, the teen said. This time, she said she tried to escape.

"I ran to the door," she said. "He jumped in front of me. Then I lay on the bed. He took my clothes off. . . . We were having sex" as he forced her down, she testified.

Her sister, now 12, said that starting when she was 8 years old, he took her to his two offices and to a private room in a bank. At times, he asked her to sit on his lap and "hump him" with their clothes on, she said.

Their cousin, now 11, testified that she met the man when she was 8 or 9. Once, in an anteroom of a courtroom in the criminal justice center, she said "he made me sit on his lap. He was feeling on my leg." He also had her feel his private parts, she said. He allegedly then gave her $20.

The lawyer’s license has been suspended by the state’s disciplinary board.

On these five new cases, the judge held Charles for trial on two counts of rape and sexual assault; five counts of unlawful contact, corruption of minors and indecent assault; and other offenses. The former lawyer is being held on $25 million bail.