Rape trial begins in Barre
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Sexual assault defendant Dale Podolece, 50, of Columbus, Miss., right, consults with his attorney Tuesday in Vermont District Court in Barre. Stefan Hard/Times Argus |
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By Thatcher Moats Times Argus Staff - Published: October 28, 2009
BARRE – A 50-year-old Mississippi man accused of drugging and raping a Plainfield woman on Halloween in 2007 was put on trial starting Tuesday in Vermont District Court in Barre.
Dale Podolece, of Colombus, Miss. is charged with "sexual assault-no consent" after having sex with a 35-year-old woman, who was the daughter of Podolece's close friend and former co-worker.
Podolece came to Vermont in October 2007 because he was helping the alleged victim's parents move from Mississippi to Plainfield where their daughter lived.
The trial, which is expected to last two days, began with opening statements from the prosecutor and Podelece's defense attorney, and the two sides presented wildly different stories about what happened on Oct. 31, 2007.
The victim told her side of the story from the witness stand, and she was one of seven witnesses called to testify yesterday.
The alleged victim said she called her employer on Oct. 31 and said she was sick so she could stay home on Nov. 1 and help her parents with their move. That night, she started drinking vodka and cranberry drinks as she, her parents and Podolece hung out in the living room in her apartment.
At one point she went outside to talk to her dad for about 15 minutes and left her drink inside with Podolece, giving him an opportunity to put a drug in her drink. Her parents went downstairs where they would spend the night, and when she came back inside, she resumed drinking what was her third vodka drink. She got only partway through the beverage when she started feeling dizzy.
"I didn't feel well," she said. "I felt dizzy and light-headed and thought to myself maybe if I go take a shower, I would feel better."
The shower didn't help, she said.
She said she lost her balance and had to crawl through the hallway. In her bedroom, she fell when she tried to put on her pajama pants and lay on the floor in the fetal position, she said. Podolece came into her room and started to massage her and brought her a bowl in case she got sick, the victim testified.
Eventually Podolece molested her, had sex with her as she lay on the floor and later lifted her up onto the bed, the alleged victim said. She didn't say "no," she said, because she wasn't capable of talking.
"It was like I couldn't talk," she said, adding that it felt like she was having an out-of-body experience.
The next day she woke up without much clothing on and quickly left for her job at Washington County Mental Health even though she had called in sick. It was there that she initially disclosed the alleged rape, according to witnesses' testimony.
(The Times Argus does not identify the victims of sexual assault).
Podolece hasn't yet testified during the trial, but in police documents and through his attorney he has painted an altogether different picture of that night.
Podolece admits he had sex with the woman, but says it was consensual.
He says the victim flashed him at one point and said: "You want some of this, don't you?"
Then she led Podolece to the bedroom where they had sex, said his attorney Maggie Vincent.
"It was a participatory event," Vincent said during her opening statement.
Podolece also says the woman performed oral sex on him, which the victim denies.
He also denied putting anything in her drink.
"I never put anything in (the victim's) drink," he wrote in court documents.
Podolece has suggested the victim offered sex in order to prevent Podolece from telling the victim's parents about drugs he found in the victim's apartment.
In a written statement given to police soon after the incident, Podolece said that after the victim took her shower, he found prescription drug bottles in the bathroom that didn't have her name on them, along with what he believed were crushed up pills. The alleged victim soon realized Podolece had seen the drugs, begged him not tell her parents and then propositioned him, Podolece wrote.
But the defense did not address the question of why the victim would then be the one to tell her parents about the incident the next day if she was trying to keep things quiet.
The victim, who was taking medication at the time of the alleged assault, said she did not take her medication the night she had sex with Podolece because they did not mix well with alcohol and she wanted to drink. She also said she did not take any other drugs that night.
Vincent highlighted what she said were discrepancies in statements the alleged victim made to co-workers; in her interviews with police and during the deposition.
For example, the victim said during a deposition that Podolece didn't touch her breasts during the sexual contact. But in an interview with a state police detective, the victim said Podolece did touch her breasts, and at the trial she said she couldn't remember if that happened.
The trial will is scheduled to continue on Wednesday.
If convicted, Podolece faces a minimum of three years in jail and up to life in prison.
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