Published: June 26, 2009 10:32 pm      

Elliott jailer denies raping woman

Closing statements scheduled to begin on Monday

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

Elliott County Jailer Charles Howard took the witness stand Friday and denied raping a woman he transported to the Boyd County Detention Center.

Howard, 51, of Sandy Hook, testified on his own behalf on day five of his trial in Boyd Circuit Court.

He admitted to jurors that he had sexual intercourse with the then-26-year-old female prisoner as he was driving her to the Boyd lockup on Aug. 31. But, he said it was consensual and the woman was the one who initiated it.

“Mr. Howard, did you rape this woman?” Howard’s attorney, Michael Curtis, asked.

“No sir, I did not,” Howard replied.

Howard’s accuser, a married mother of three from Boyd County, has been seated at the prosecution table throughout most of the trial, which began Monday. However, she got up and left the courtroom as Howard was preparing to testify.

Howard’s wife, Christy, watched her husband’s testimony from a seat near the front of the courtroom gallery. She appeared at several points to be crying and was comforted by another woman sitting next to her.

Under questioning by Curtis, Howard said he arrived at the Elliott County Sheriff’s Department about 12:30 p.m. on Aug. 31 to transport the woman, who had been arrested on several outstanding warrants, including one from Boyd County for unpaid fines in a misdemeanor case.

He said he waited around at the sheriff’s office for several hours while the woman made numerous phone calls trying to arrange for bond. When she was unsuccessful, he said he took her out to his vehicle to take her to jail.

Howard acknowledged he did not place either handcuffs or leg shackles on the woman. But, he said that was not unusual.

“It’s a small community there,” he said. “Everybody pretty much knows everybody. Unless they’re just plumb irate, I don’t handcuff them.”

Howard also admitted he stopped his vehicle shortly after leaving Sandy Hook and allowed the woman to get out of the back seat and into the front seat with him.

“She kept talking, and I couldn’t hear her from the back seat,” he said. “She didn’t seem like a violent person, so I just stopped and let her get up front.”

Howard said he initially planned to take the woman to the Carter County Detention Center, but decided to take her on to Boyd County so she could meet with a pre-trial officer and possibly avoid having to spend the night in jail.

At one point, as the two were traveling east on U.S. 60, Howard said, the woman “started coming on” to him by reaching over and rubbing his genitals. He said he told her to stop, but she persisted.

He said he drove the woman to a couple of locations where she had suggested they might be able to have sex. After those didn’t pan out, he said he drove to a small cemetery just up the hill from Appalachian Fuels, which is located at the junction of Interstate 64 and Ky. 180.

“(The woman) swung around in the seat and pulled one leg out of her pants. I pulled my pants down and we had quick sex,” he said.

Prosecutors allege that Howard drove the woman to a remote location near Rush and forced her to have sex with him after she spurned his advances as the two were leaving the cemetery.

During cross-examination, Commonwealth’s Attorney David Justice hammered Howard over inconsistencies in the statements he gave to police.

“Mr. Howard, do you know how many different stories you’ve told?” Justice asked.

“I’ve tried to tell the truth every time,” he said.

If that’s indeed the case, Justice inquired, why did the defendant initially deny having any sexual contact with the woman when confronted with that allegation by Kentucky State Police Detective Erik Kouns?

Howard said it was because he first spoke to Kouns at his church in Sandy Hook, where a funeral had just taken place and where there were a lot of other people around, including his wife.

“I was very confused there at the church,” he said. “I was very nervous at that time.”

Howard eventually suggested to Kouns that they go the sheriff’s department. There, Howard gave a second statement in which he admitted he’d had sex with the woman. However, he denied forcing himself on her.

Howard also admitted under cross-examination that he’d lied to Kouns about the route he’d taken to the Boyd jail, about stopping at a convenience store along the way to buy the woman a soft drink and about the point at which he allowed the woman to get in the front seat.

Howard, who was elected Elliott jailer in 2003, is charged with first-degree rape and could get 10-20 years if he is convicted. He remains in office, but was stripped from his duties following his arrest.

Curtis concluded his case on Friday. The trial is scheduled to resume at 10 a.m. Monday with closing statements.