Rape trial offers two competing slices of life at the juvenile dorm of the Ascension Parish Jail – The Advocate

GONZALES Eight months removed from his acquittal in the October 2015 slaying of a St. Amant High senior, Jacob Westbrook testified Wednesday that two youths in the Ascension Parish Prison juvenile dorm raped him in early 2017 while he awaited his murder trial, saying the first of three sexual assaults by the two may have only gone on for minutes but "felt like lifetime."

During the first day of the first-degree rape trial of one of Westbrook's accused assailants, Tre'Anthony James, 20, of Baton Rouge, prosecutors and defense attorneys offered competing slices of jail life: a brutal one where the strongest dominate the weakest in cloistered jail cells with little privacy or another where young men behind bars find a jailhouse version of romance and engage in consensual sex.

Westbrook has also filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the Ascension Parish Sheriff's Office, James, his co-defendant, Kaglin Green, and sheriff's employees over the incident, but the suit is on hold while the criminal cases proceed.

Prosecutor Matthew Derbes portrayed Westbrook as fearful of stronger youths who gradually dominated him and said Westbrook initially was unwilling to be a "rat" as the threatening behavior worsened.

"It's not that easy when you're in jail," Derbes told jurors in his opening statement.

Attorneys for James, who is charged with two counts of first-degree rape of Westbrook, claimed the sexual contact, which is not disputed, was consensual. They attorneys also questioned why Westbrook didn't tell deputies or family, who had regular interaction with him, about alleged bullying.

Yet, in later testimony, jurors also heard prosecutors play a recording of James' initial sheriff's interview where James makes no claim of consensual sex but flatly denies raping or having any kind of physical or sexual contact with Westbrook.

"We don't even joke like that," James told an investigator.

Derbes pointed out that James' denials came before crime lab testing turned up DNA linking James to sexual contact with Westbrook.

James' attorneys also attacked several inconsistencies Wednesday in Westbrook's various accounts of the rapes and highlighted that Westbrook later told a psychiatrist that he played "homosexual games" with James and others in the days to weeks leading up to the assaults.

"I'm dying to know what those homosexual games are," defense attorney Shannon Battiste told jurors in his opening statement.

In February, Westbrook, who is now living and working out of state and has a young child, was where James is: at the defense table on trial trying to avoid life in prison. Ascension Parish prosecutors had accused Westbrook of second-degree murder in the stabbing of 18-year-old Todd "T. J." Toups Jr.

Westbrook, who was 16 at the time, claimed self-defense, testifying he had grabbed a knife only scare the larger Toups away, but, when the two youths faced off inside the trailer home of Westbrook's then-pregnant fiance,Westbrook said he reacted to a punch from Toups and fatally stabbed him, sending the kitchen knife deep into Toups' chest and upper heart.

Like the first-degree rape charge James is facing, a conviction for second-degree murder would have brought a mandatory life sentence for Westbrook, but a jury acquitted him.

Back on the stand at the Ascension Parish Courthouse Wednesday, this time as the victim, Westbrook, 20, described for jurors how the alleged sexual assaults by James and Green were the culmination of primarily James' gradual domination over him.

Westbrook said he and Green were initially friendly but Green started asking and then taking breakfasts, dinners,commissary items and the use of Westbrook's telephone code and had repeatedly beaten him in practice boxing something they call "slap fighting" and wrestling sessions.

Later, however, under rapid-fire questioning from Battiste, Westbrook testified that the homosexual games described by the psychiatrist were actually a similar kind of ratcheting up of aggression from James and others. Initially a game of hide-and-seek where Westbrook searched for others in the jail cell blindfolded and in the dark, the game led to his being blindfolded but having his butt slapped, his pants pulled down and his genitals touched.

Westbrook testified that in the first of three assaults on Jan. 10 he was pinned down over a day room table while Green got a razor for James, who cut open Westbrook's orange jump suit, pulled down his jail-issue long johns and underwear and raped him.

Under questioning from Assistant Attorney General Derbes, Westbrook estimated that the first of two alleged rapes by James took four to five minutes.

"It felt like a lifetime," Westbrook added.

He accused James of raping him again a day later again but this time without force because he knew James could beat him up.

On cross-examination, Battiste, the defense attorney, pointed out that Westbrook's lawsuit claims he screamed for help when he was being raped the first time but deputies never showed up. On the stand, Westbrook said he didn't say anything because he was afraid and acknowledged that the lawsuit wasn't correct.

Battiste also drew attention to Westbrook's testimony Wednesday that Green, 20, of Donaldsonville, also raped him in January 2017. Westbrook acknowledged he never told a sheriff's investigator or a sexual assault nurse that Green raped him but only later when he spoke with investigators from the State Attorney General's Office and a mental health professional.

Westbrook testified he didn't believe Green's attack was a rape because he wasn't physically restrained that time but that he relented, fearing Green, after Green's repeated asking for sex. Green is facing a charge of principal to first-degree rape.

Battiste also questioned how Westbrook could have been so afraid of James when he had been willing to stab Todd Toups in 2015. Westbrook shot back that he had only grabbed the knife to scare Toups and didn't have a similar weapon in jail.

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Rape trial offers two competing slices of life at the juvenile dorm of the Ascension Parish Jail - The Advocate