A jury found Erick Thompson guilty of rape and other related charges on Wednesday afternoon, following a one-day trial at Schuylkill County Courthouse.
The jury of nine women and three men deliberated for more than two hours Wednesday before they convicted Thompson of raping a woman in her Hegins Township home on the night of Oct. 3, 2024. He was also found guilty of sexual assault, indecent assault without consent, and indecent assault (forcible compulsion).
During the trial inside Courtroom 2, jurors heard from Thompson’s victim who said she initially rejected his ideas of resuming their relationship.
After they returned from outside after having a cigarette, Thompson attempted to kiss the victim. She said she put her hand up to deny his advance. That’s when Thompson pushed her to a couch and attacked her.
As she was being attacked, the victim told jurors she tried to defend herself but was unsuccessful because Thompson is considerably larger than she is. She tried pushing him away with her legs.
“I was trying to push him off of me,” she said. “I really feared for my life. I didn’t know what he would do if I hit him.”
During the attack, the victim was able to dial 9-1-1 two times. Each time, Thompson ended the call. One lasted just three seconds. However, the second call lasted more than two minutes. A recording of it was played for jurors during the trial and replayed for them as they deliberated the case.
In the call, jurors could hear the victim crying loudly and her yelling “Stop!” repeatedly. On several occasions, she says his name, “Erick, please stop!”
After he hung up the second call to 9-1-1, the victim recalled Thompson saying, “Oh great, now I’m going to get charged with rape.”
Jurors also saw Ring video footage from inside the victim’s kitchen. In one clip, Thompson is seen leaving her house after the attack. He chugs a container of Jameson whiskey and Coke, which he had been drinking throughout the night, the victim testified, and said, “That’s how you do it before the cops come.”
During his testimony, Thompson claimed the sex that night was consensual.
During closing arguments, Thompson’s attorney, Jeffrey Markosky, argued that there was no evidence of a sexual assault in the victim’s rape kit. There was also no evidence of defensive wounds on his client, he said.
Markosky said the prosecution’s case lacks physical evidence.
“A reasonable doubt occurs in this case,” he said.
Assistant District Attorney Jen Foose told jurors in her closing argument that Thompson’s story on when the rape occurred that time changed from a previous statement so it didn’t line up with the timing of the 9-1-1 calls.
Foose also said Thompson lied today about how much he’d had to drink that night.
“The defendant’s story does not make sense,” she said.
President Judge Jacqueline Russell ordered a pre-sentence investigation before Thompson is formally sentenced on the crimes he was convicted of on Wednesday.
Thompson is already incarcerated in Schuylkill County Prison and faces a separate aggravated assault charge after he allegedly shanked an inmate while he was in jail on the rape charges.
Bail was previously revoked by Judge Christina Hale as Thompson was seeking a reduction on bail in the rape case because of an offensive gesture he made to her at the bail reduction hearing.
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