Over and over again, Jacob Ford apologized to the woman on the phone. It was a little after noon on Jan. 2, about a week since the morning she said she woke up in bed with him on top of her. In Lancaster Count
CORY MATTESON / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Thursday, October 9, 2008 7:00 pm
Over and over again, Jacob Ford apologized to the woman on the phone. It was a little after noon on Jan. 2, about a week since the morning she said she woke up in bed with him on top of her.
In Lancaster County District Court this week, she said she had been sexually assaulted by Ford, 24, the guest of honor at a house party that December night.
“So you’re saying you were wrong?” the 23-year-old asked him.
“Yeah,” said Ford, who is on trial for first-degree sexual assault. “One hundred percent.”
She continued to question him about the night, about why Ford, a National Guardsman who’d recently returned home from Iraq, would have sex with her when she was passed out.
He said he was more drunk than he’d ever been in his life, and that he didn’t remember anything from that night.
“And you wouldn’t have done it if you weren’t drunk?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
But he also said he remembered her talking to him while they were having sex. She told him then, and jurors this week, that she was drunk, and unconscious, until she awoke and told him to get off of her.
During the phone call, Ford apologized often, and generally. He said what he did to the woman would never happen again to her or to any other woman.
On Friday Lincoln Police Sgt. Luke Wilke testified that he and Ford met at the police station at Wilke’s request hours after Ford called the woman. Ford brought up the call, and Wilke asked if he lied to her at all during it.
“Why?” Ford asked Wilke. “Was it recorded?”
Wilke told Ford that he just was trying to get everyone’s side of the story. The conversation continued without him ever telling Ford the phone call had been recorded.
The woman had been in Wilke’s unmarked cruiser during the call, he said Friday. She sat in the passenger seat and wore a headset that recorded the call. Wilke sat in the driver’s seat, passing along notes to help direct the conversation.
On Friday, jurors listened to that recording and watched a video of Ford and Wilke’s 22-minute conversation.
Ford told Wilke during the interview that he had sex with the woman, but it was consensual. He said she was kissing him and talking to him. He said he was “too drunk to be having sex” that night, but everyone at the party was too drunk that night. The woman making the accusations had admittedly slept with someone else earlier in the night, Ford said.
Ford submitted to a DNA test during the interview and said he had nothing to hide.
“That’s why I had no problem coming down here,” he told Wilke. “I don’t think I did anything wrong.”
Over the phone to the woman, he said otherwise.
“I’m sorry, I really am, and I regret everything I did,” he said shortly before hanging up.
He told Wilke that he was apologizing because he didn’t want her “to feel hurt about the whole situation.”
Wilke, Deputy County Attorney Matt Acton said in court, was the prosecution’s last witness. The defense will likely call witnesses following a cross examination of Wilke that will begin when the trial resumes Tuesday morning. If convicted, Ford could receive up to 50 years in prison.
Reach Cory Matteson at 473-7306 or cmatteson@journalstar.com.