NAHA, Okinawa — An Okinawa woman accusing a Kadena Air Base new-car salesman of rape completed her testimony Tuesday in Naha District Court.
Few new details of the Aug. 22 incident were revealed during the three hours the 21-year-old college student testified via closed-circuit television from another room in the courthouse.
The defendant, Dag Allen Thompson, 31, an employee of Exchange New Car Sales, sat in front of the defense table between two guards as he listened to the woman testify how she was positive of the identification she made of him almost a month after the attack, when she viewed him through a one-way mirror in Okinawa City’s prefectural police station.
Throughout her testimony, Thompson either took notes or stared straight ahead, showing no emotion.
He was unable to look at his accuser. The courtroom’s television screens were turned away from Thompson and courtroom spectators. A defense request that he be allowed to look at her was denied.
Thompson is accused of sneaking into the woman’s unlocked home in the early morning hours of Aug. 22 and raping her as she lay in her sister’s bed. The woman has testified that at first she thought he was her sister’s boyfriend but when he refused to stop, she shone her cell phone in his face, revealing him as a heavy-set Caucasian. She said she’d never seen him before.
Thompson later was identified from a police sketch, the prosecution said. DNA tests of a piece of the sheet and other material dampened by the woman’s attacker later were matched to samples taken from Thompson, the prosecution asserts.
The DNA also linked him to a 1998 burglary and rape in Naha, the prosecution has said. Thompson has pleaded not guilty to charges of burglary and rape in both incidents and has refused to comment further in court.
During cross-examination Tuesday, defense attorney Toshimitsu Takaesu attempted to show some of the evidence in the case could have been the result of sexual activity by the alleged victim’s sister.
The woman testified her sister had a steady boyfriend but she was certain the sister “periodically washed the sheets.”
