At about 2 p.m. today jurors began deliberating in the trial of a Jersey City man charged with kidnapping, raping and assaulting a 28-year-old Newark women on July 27, 2013 who later managed to escape as the sun rose the next day.
JERSEY CITY -- At about 2 p.m. today jurors began deliberating in the trial of a city felon charged with kidnapping, raping and assaulting a 28-year-old Newark woman on July 27, 2013.
During the trial, the woman testified she got into Shawn Barrett's car in Newark after he offered to smoke marijuana with her. But she said he suddenly hit the gas, punched her and threatened to shoot her in the head before taking her to his Stevens Avenue apartment in Jersey City, where he repeatedly raped her at knife-point.
When Barrett fell asleep, the woman said she slipped off his bed, undid the chain on his apartment door and ran down the steps to the lobby and front door. Naked, she saw an ambulance in the street two doors away and ran to it.
The woman said there was a man at the ambulance and she ran to him yelling "'Help me, help me.' I think I startled him. He said 'calm down.' He gave me a sheet to cover myself and he put me in the back of the ambulance.
"When I got inside the ambulance, I called my ex-boyfriend and I called my mother and I told them what happened to me," she said during the trial, adding that she was taken to a hospital where a rape kit was administered.
But during cross examination of the woman, defense attorney Ronald Hunt noted that in the long statement she gave investigators she did not mention marijuana.
She leafed through the transcript of her statement looking for reference to being offered marijuana before getting into the car and said "I said it in the statement. Maybe they made a mistake."
"They made a mistake?" Hunt replied. "OK."
The Newark woman said that while she was being raped, Barrett blindfolded her using a belt, a tie and at one point covered her face with a shirt.
"Was it your belief he was trying to hide his face from you," Hunt asked. "You drove from Newark to Jersey City. You weren't wearing a mask?"
Barrett has already been convicted of kidnapping and raping another woman in a separate incident in 2013. He was to be sentenced in December, but the date was pushed back to Jan. 29 as officials awaited the report on whether or not he is a compulsive and repetitive sexual offender.
The trial is before Hudson County Superior Court Judge Joseph Isabella in the Hudson County Administration Building in Jersey City.
The jury, which deliberated until 4:15 p.m., will continue deliberates at 9 a.m. tomorrow.