On December 10, 1980, two men armed with a shot gun entered a fast food restaurant in Nassau County. They threatened the employees with bodily harm if they did not hand over the cash in the cash box. When the two female employees handed to the two armed men all the cash from the cash box, the men forced the women to go outside the restaurant. They forced the women to ride in their car which was parked outside the restaurant.
A New York Criminal Lawyer said the two armed men drove for twenty minutes from the fast food restaurant in Nassau County to a dead end street somewhere in Suffolk County. During the drive, the men took turns feeling up the women’s skirts and shirts. The men fondled the women’s breasts and sex organs.
When they got to the dead end street in Suffolk County, the men took turns raping the two women. When the men were exhausted, they threatened the women and their families with death should they report the rapes to the police. The two men then let the two women go.
The two women promptly reported the robbery, the kidnapping and the sexual abuse as well as the rapes to the police in Nassau County. The police hunted down the two armed men and when they were arrested they were charged with robbery in the first degree, two counts of rape in the first degree, two counts of sexual abuse in the first degree and kidnapping. The men were arraigned and then they were convicted by a jury and sentenced in Nassau County.
The men appealed their conviction. First they claimed that their arrest, indictment, trial and convictions for rape in Nassau County should be reversed because Nassau County had no jurisdiction over the rapes as the rapes occurred in Suffolk County.
A New York City Criminal Lawyer said the Court held that Nassau County had jurisdiction to try the two men for the rapes because one of the elements of the rape was committed in Nassau County. The Court held that the rapes began when the two armed men used forcible compulsion on the women to make them leave the restaurant and ride in the two men’s car. The forcible compulsion continued as the men drove the car with the women in the car. The women could not resist the two men because they had a shotgun pointed at them. The men fondled the two women in the car as they drove and the two armed men raped the women at gunpoint. This forcible compulsion began in Nassau County, continued as they left Nassau County until the rape was consummated in Suffolk County.
The forcible compulsion put the women in fear for their personal bodily safety that they could not earnestly resist the two men. The forcible compulsion was not incidental or remote from the rape because the threat continued as long as the two men held the shotgun toward the women.
The Court also rejected the two armed men’s argument that they could not be convicted for rape because they had no specific intent to rape the two women. The Court held that the mental state of the men from the time that they compelled the women to leave the fast food restaurant, to ride in the car and then to rape them was evident. They had no other desire or intent for the women but to get them away from anything familiar in order for the two men to have their way with the women without any fear of interruption. From the time that the two armed men were in Nassau County, they had the very specific intent of raping those two women and the specific intent continued until they had consummated the rapes.
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