Published: June 22, 2009 11:07 pm      

Jailer’s rape trial opens

Hearing expected to continue through the rest of this week

CATLETTSBURG — Contents of this story may be offensive to some readers.



The jailer of Elliott County went on trial Monday in Boyd Circuit Court for allegedly raping a female prisoner he was transporting.

Charles F. Howard, 51, of Sandy Hook, could be sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison if he is convicted of first-degree rape, the crime with which he is charged.

Prosecutors allege Howard drove the alleged victim in the case, a 28-year-old Boyd County woman, to a remote area near the Boyd-Carter County line while transporting her to the Boyd County Detention Center and forced himself upon her after she had rebuffed his earlier attempts to have sex with her.

However, in his opening remarks to jurors, Howard’s attorney, Michael Curtis, said the woman concocted the rape allegation because she was angry about having to go to jail.

Curtis also told jurors a physical examination of the woman following the alleged rape showed no signs of bruising or other injuries, which he said would have likely been the case had she been attacked in the manner she described.

In his opening statement, Boyd Commonwealth’s Attorney David Justice told jurors the alleged victim was arrested in Elliott County on Aug. 31 on warrants charging her with having unpaid fines from court cases in Elliott and Morgan counties.

Charges in Boyd County

The woman arranged to be released on her own recognizance on those charges. However, while she was being processed at the Elliott County Sheriff’s Department, a records check revealed an additional outstanding warrant, for non-payment of a fine stemming from a misdemeanor case in Boyd County, Justice said.

At that point, he said, the woman was turned over to Howard to be transported to the closest jail. The woman was told she was going to be taken to the Carter County Detention Center, he said.

Elliott County has not operated its own jail since 1986, when the state ordered the county to close its lockup. All prisoners from Elliott are transported to jails in other counties to be held, and Elliott pays fees to those counties for housing its inmates.

There was no deputy jailer matron along on the trip, even though that was the county’s standard procedure, Justice said. Howard’s wife, Christy, had served in that role in the past, Elliott officials have said.

Justice said a short time after leaving the Elliott courthouse, Howard told the woman — who was wearing neither handcuffs nor leg shackles — to get out of the back seat of his cruiser and join him up front.

‘Alarm bell went off’

“That was when the first alarm bell went off” in the alleged victim’s mind, he said.

As the two neared Grayson, Howard told the woman he was going to “do her a favor” and take her to the Boyd County Detention Center rather than to the Carter lockup, Justice said. Howard pulled onto Interstate 64 and the two headed east toward Catlettsburg, he said.

However, Howard pulled off of the freeway at the Cannonsburg exit, and almost immediately after doing so, turned left onto the Appalachian Fuels property, Justice said. There, he encountered a security guard named Paul Smith, whom he knew, and the two exchanged greetings, he said.

Two people who were in a gazebo next to the pond at Appalachian Fuels also saw Howard and the woman together in the cruiser, Justice said.

Howard then backed the cruiser up and drove to a small private cemetery just up the hill from Appalachian Fuels, Justice said. Footage from Appalachian Fuels’ security cameras shows the car coming back down the hill about five minutes later, he said.

During those five minutes, Justice said, Howard made advances toward the woman, and, at one point, asked her to have sex with him. The woman declined, saying she didn’t believe it would be right for her to do so because she was married and because Howard was a law-enforcement official.

After leaving the cemetery, Howard drove east on Ky. 180 toward Ashland, Justice said. However, he made a left turn onto U.S. 60, headed west and drove for several miles before turning onto a remote gravel road in the Coalton area.

“That was when (the woman) knew she was in trouble,” he said.

Howard forced one of the woman’s legs onto the front seat of the car and her head against one of the windows, held her down, removed her loose-fitting pajama pants and underwear, penetrated her with his fingers, then, without saying anything, unzipped his pants and raped her, Justice said.

The woman “fought as hard as she could,” but did not offer too much resistance because she knew Howard was armed, he said.

Following the rape, Howard told the woman that Boyd County Jailer Joe Burchett was his “best friend” and implied he could make matters difficult for her if she told anyone what happened, Justice said.

“He said, ‘I can tell him you were a good girl, or I can tell him you gave me trouble,’” he said.

Howard also allegedly told the woman several times she was free to get out of his vehicle and he would say she escaped, Justice said. However, the woman didn’t do that because she didn’t want to risk being charged with escape, he said. She also feared Howard might shoot her, he said.

The woman was booked into the Boyd jail at 6:44 p.m., 48 minutes after the last image of Howard’s vehicle leaving the Appalachian Fuels property was recorded, Justice said. He said that would have given Howard plenty of time to have committed the rape.

Timeline disputed

Curtis hotly disputed the prosecution’s timeline, saying while the woman may have been booked at 6:44 p.m., she actually arrived at the jail earlier than that, and it was some time before the deputies got around to processing her.

After being processed, the woman told a female deputy she had been raped, Justice said. The Kentucky State Police was contacted, and the woman was taken to King’s Daughters Medical Center, where a rape examination was performed.

The examination revealed the presence of semen, which was sent to the KSP’s Northern Crime Lab for DNA analysis. The analysis showed the odds of the semen coming from anyone other than Howard were one in 640 quadrillion, Justice said.

Howard was interviewed by the KSP the day after the alleged incident and initially denied anything improper had taken place during the transport, Justice said. However, during a second round of questioning, he admitted to having sex with the woman but claimed she had been the aggressor.

“He said, ‘This lady was all over me. She wanted to have sex with me. I said no, but she wouldn’t leave me alone,’” he said.

The alleged victim sat in the courtroom with Justice and Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Stephanie Lother Hembroff. She sobbed loudly during Justice’s opening statement, and, at one point, she interrupted Curtis’ opening remarks by blurting, “That’s not true!”

The woman isn’t being identified by The Independent because the newspaper does not publish the names of alleged sex crime victims without their permission.

Tensions were high during the opening day of the trial, which is expected to last all week. Justice and Curtis sniped at one another frequently and interrupted one another’s opening remarks with objections several times.

During one heated bench conference in the midst of Curtis’ opening, a clearly perturbed Judge Marc I. Rosen ordered both attorneys to his chambers. The parties emerged a short time later, and there was no mention of anything that had taken place in chambers.

Howard is free on $20,000 bond. Following his arrest, the Elliott County Fiscal Court transferred his duties to Mark E. Lewis, an employee of the county road department, pending the outcome of the case.

The trial was scheduled to resume at 9 this morning.

KENNETH HART can be reached at khart@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2654.