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https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/news-gazette.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/8/d9/8d958f43-0c9a-5aca-8f05-501b94d52dcf/5d0bdf2667fe6.image.jpg

URBANA — It took a Champaign County jury just over an hour Friday to come down on the side of a woman who said her boyfriend raped her twice in two days, battered and choked her last year.

Germel Butler, 45, faces up to 30 years in prison when Judge Roger Webber sentences him May 22 for aggravated criminal sexual assault, aggravated domestic battery and domestic battery.

Butler denied that he forced his live-in girlfriend to engage in sex or otherwise harmed her on Sept. 17 and 18 in the apartment where they stayed on South State Street in Champaign.

His testimony was in sharp contrast to her version of being grabbed by the ears, thrown across the room, dragged by the hair to a bedroom, choked and raped on one night and then experiencing another round of violence the next morning.

Champaign police said they became involved about 10:15 a.m. on Sept. 18 after a male neighbor heard her screams and intervened, enabling the woman to flee the apartment and seek refuge from another neighbor.

Police officers testified that when they arrived, they found the intervening neighbor, who refused to talk to them, and Butler leaving on a bicycle.

That prompted a police pursuit that ended several blocks away on Green Street with Butler's arrest. They found the woman, hysterical, at the nearby apartment house.

The woman testified that on the evening of Sept. 17, Butler got angry with her, interlocked his thumbs, wrapped his hands around the back of her neck, dug his thumbs into her windpipe and squeezed until she passed out.

"It was one of his favorite things," she testified through sobs on Wednesday.

She said she was roused to consciousness by him smacking her face then raping her.

"He said that he liked it, that he was going to kill me, he was never going to let me go and if I tried to leave, it would be worse," she said.

When that assault on Sept. 17 was complete, she said she rolled over, only to have Butler cradle her, apologize and cry, declaring, "I don't know why I'm hurting you."

Under questioning by Assistant State's Attorney Scott Larson, the woman said that cycle of violence, followed by an apology and promises of better behavior from Butler was common during the four months they were together.

She admitted that she had signed two affidavits asking that the state not prosecute Butler because she had made up the allegations. But in court, she said she felt pressured by him and his family into doing that.

The jury also heard calls that Butler made to the woman and others from the county jail regarding what he wanted the affidavits to include.

On the morning of Sept. 18, the woman said she was awakened by him "grabbing my hair and smacking my face into the wall and doing it all over again."

"He said I was going to make him some money that day" by having sex with another man. When she refused, she said, he forcibly had sex with her again then ordered her to the bathroom to clean herself up.

She said her screams drew the attention of a neighbor she knew only as Joe, who came in and distracted Butler long enough for her to flee the apartment.

Champaign police Officer Shane Standifer said when he arrived, he recognized Butler from previous calls and that Butler took off on his bicycle despite Standifer calling out to him. Standifer confirmed that Joe would not cooperate with police and that he
recognized the woman from a prior call at that same address.

At Carle Hospital, Standifer said, he saw "various bruises on her head, upper torso and legs in different stages of healing" and that the woman reported that Butler "routinely battered her several times a week." He also reported seeing marks on her neck.

Sgt. Katherine Thompson testified she pursued Butler on his bicycle until he crashed it in an alley on East Green Street. A breathless Butler told her he never battered Joe or his girlfriend, who he said he thought was at work. Thompson said Butler could
not name the woman's place of employment and never said why he fled on his bicycle. She reported finding a small amount of cannabis on him.

Assistant Public Defender Lindsey Yanchus cross-examined the woman at length about the affidavits she wrote asking that Butler not be prosecuted. She also produced a transcript from a preliminary hearing not long after Butler was charged in which
Standifer testified that he had not seen marks on the woman's neck.

Butler's daughter also testified that she never threatened or coerced the woman into writing an affidavit asking that Butler not be prosecuted.

In his own defense, Butler maintained the woman made up the allegations that he beat and raped her because she was upset with him for being unfaithful to her and because he had declined her request to buy her drugs.

He maintained the sex was consensual — "we had sex three to five times a day" — and that he fled from police when they arrived at the apartment complex because he had a few grams of cannabis on him.

https://www.news-gazette.com/news/champaign-man-convicted-of-rape-battery/article_9e4d78d9-df06-581b-ba69-619e73949412.html

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