Rollins trial, day 10: Rollins takes the stand

Nesbett Courthouse, Alaska Court System

The trial in Case No. 3AN-09-07868CR, State of Alaska v. Rollins, is being heard before Anchorage Superior Court Judge Philip R. Volland in the Nesbett Courthouse at 4th & I in Anchorage.

Wednesday, February 9  at the trial of Anthony Rollins: before a packed courtroom, the ex-Anchorage Police Department officer accused of serial rape while on-duty took the stand in his own defense.

Cross-examination by the prosecution is expected to resume on Thursday morning.  Yesterday I created a Twitter list of people who are in the courtroom livetweeting the trial: go to http://twitter.com/#!/list/yksin/rollins to follow.  So far, the list includes @GraceJangKTVA & @photogfank of KTVA Channel 11 News and @CarolynHallKTUU & @RebeccaPalsha of KTUU Channel 2 News.

Also Wednesday, my blog post of February 2, “Why I’m following the trial of alleged serial rapist Anthony Rollins”was crossposted as a “Voices from the Flats” feature at The Mudflats. The Mudflats gets a good deal more traffic & discussion than Henkimaa does, and there was some good discussion there yesterday.  I made some comments there too, including my summary of Rollins’ defense strategy:

Rollins’ defense goes like this: “I had sexual relations with other women outside my marriage, which was wrong, & I did so while on duty, which was wrong, but I didn’t sexually assault any of the women: they came on to me, at least two of them told me I was ‘cute’ [he testified that this morning about victims 1 & 2], & sex that we had was consensual. So while guilty of betraying my marital vows and of doing so while on the clock, I am not guilty of these crimes I’m charged with.”

Per the tweets from KTVA & KTUU journos in the courtroom, Rollins’ victims & their family members hearing his testimony are very agitated about his testimony — shaking heads, rolling eyes, tears, anger, upset. APD officers in courtroom near one journo also agitated. Analysis: they believe he’s lying. Well, so do I.

My later summary as the trial recessed:

Trial recessed just before 1:00 PM Alaska time & will continue tomorrow. The D.A. questioned Rollins about three so far of his accusers. I tell you that it’s pretty hard just to read the tweets; I can’t imagine how much harder it must have been for victims & their family members to sit in court & listen to Rollins claim that he took a 24-year-old DUI suspect in pajamas in handcuffs to a police substation, calling her mother to let her know where he was, & then proceeding to have sex with her from behind — where he was the one to pull down her pants — was “consensual” & was “invited” by her.

That’s the kind of stuff people have been hearing him say today.

D.A. also questioned him about how many women he’s had sex with outside marriage since he married his wife (also an APD officer) in 1987. “I don’t know. More than once.” He apparently regards his contacts with these young women who were under his police authority as being “affairs.”

One’s gorge rises.

For the full comments, go to The Mudflats. Further down this post, links to media coverage of today’s proceeding. But first,

My tweets

Media accounts of today’s testimony

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