Romalace Williams listens to prosecutor Andrew Coyle give his closing argument. Judge Barry Steelman listens in the background.
photo by Joseph Dycus
The jury will begin deliberations on Thursday morning to decide Romalace Williams’ fate. He is charged with raping a student at Brainerd High in December of 2018. At the time, the alleged victim was 14 and Williams was 17. Prosecutor Andrew Coyle emphasized the fact that Williams admitted to lying about events in interviews, in pre-trial hearings, and in the trial itself.
“Every piece of evidence shows she did not consent.
No means no,” prosecutor Coyle said. “He is arguing about it being consensual, after he spent an hour lying. He is not a good liar, but he is tactful.”
Defense attorney Charles Wright said the intercourse was consensual, and that the defendant was the victim of a justice system that prioritizes the accuser over the accused. He also addressed the changes to Williams’ story over the years.
“He had enough good character to recant on his own volition,” attorney Wright said. “(The victim's) problem is she made a lie to hide what happened. She was treated like a queen even though the facts don’t verify what she said.”
“You don’t think she had enough strength or willpower to not spread her legs,” Wright also asked. “He had a motive to lie and he was justified. She had a motive to lie because she was exonerated.”
Prosecutor Miriam Johnson harshly criticized attorney Wright’s argument in the state’s final closing argument.
“Being raped in the auditorium during your freshman year, so that’s being treated like a queen,” prosecutor Johnson asked, before referencing Wright’s argument that the victim should have “kept her legs closed” by saying “Keeping an aspirin between her legs? He was on the wrestling team, and she was younger. She couldn’t get away.”
“Love isn’t keeping a secret. Love isn’t wiping up evidence and covering it with a box,” prosecutor Johnson said. “There’s only one thing he was right about. He said it wasn’t really sexual assault, and he’s right. It was rape.”
The state had an investigator play the audio recording of two separate interviews conducted shortly after the incident. Williams initially denied knowing the victim, but added to and changed his story several times. Williams eventually admitted to being in the auditorium where the alleged rape occurred, but said “nothing sexual happened.”
In the second interview, which took place when Williams learned he was going to be arrested, he told the investigator that he did have consensual intercourse with the victim. He said he did not consider it rape because he said “she came on to” him.
“Truth is, I’m nervous,” Williams was recorded saying. “I do like her and emotions led to me having intercourse behind the auditorium. What happened naturally happened, and it was mutual.”
Defense attorney Wright pressed the investigator in his cross-examination and said the investigator had not proven what occurred was actually rape. The investigator countered by citing the victim’s testimony on Tuesday, where she described what happened as “unwanted sexual contact.”
Following the lunch break, Romalace Williams took the witness stand as the sole defense witness. He said he was attracted to the victim, and that the victim was the one who initiated intercourse.
“She took her clothes off, and we were on the floor,” Williams said. “She told me to stop, and I told her she was bleeding, and she said I needed to clean (the blood up).”
Williams said after he was placed in police custody, he was forced to wait for several hours, and that he was tired, hungry, and thirsty after he had been to swimming practice right before the incident. He admitted to giving false statements, and said he did so because of his condition.
“I was hungry and sleepy, so I thought if I got it over with, I could get food and water,” Williams said. “I was intimidated, it was cold, and I was saying anything. I did not rape or sexually assault (the victim), it was consensual.”
Prosecutor Coyle then got Williams to admit to lying and committing perjury multiple times on the record during his cross-examination. When Coyle asked Williams if he had lied to the investigator during the interview, and to Judge Barry Steelman during a previous hearing, Williams answered “yes” both times.
“You can’t keep it straight, can you?” prosecutor Coyle asked. “You lied to Judge Steelman, and you lied about knowing (the victim)?”
“Yes,” Williams replied, before saying “I told them part of the truth.”
“That’s how love is. I wanted to keep it a secret….I lied to the court, but it was four or five years ago,” Williams continued. “I don’t remember all the pieces to the story, but I remember it was consensual.”
Williams told the prosecutor that he asked the victim if she consented five different times, which Coyle pointed out as differing from a previous version of his story.
“When did that conversation happen,” Coyle asked. “When your face was between the 14 year old’s legs?”