Deliberations under way
in 2nd trial of rape suspect

By Debra Barayuga
Star-Bulletin

The Mililani rapist had a signature:

Kidnap a teen-age girl in Mililani. Force her at knife point into his gold car. Put her head on his lap and force her to masturbate him while he drove to a remote pineapple field. Once there, force her to perform oral sex and other sex acts. Apologize later, saying he's having problems with his wife or girlfriend.

Those are the marks of James Allen Thompson, prosecutors say.

His defense attorney disagrees. If the Mililani rapist had a signature, it was somebody else's, not his client's, said deputy public defender Todd Eddins. "It's a forged signature -- not the signature of James Thompson."

Attorneys on both sides gave closing arguments yesterday in the sex assault trial of the former adult corrections officer. The jury began deliberating yesterday afternoon and is expected to resume tomorrow.

This is the second trial for Thompson, 38, charged with a series of abductions and sexual assaults on five Mililani girls aged 14 to 16, on separate occasions, from January to September 1997.

A judge declared a mistrial last July after the defense argued that a question posed by the prosecutor deprived him of a fair trial.

Thompson is accused of 21 counts -- including first-degree sexual assault, first-degree attempted sexual assault, third-degree sexual assault, fourth-degree sexual assault and kidnapping.

He faces between one and 20 years in prison if convicted of the charges.

Of the five girls, one managed to escape before they got to the rapist's car. Another took his license plate number after he stopped her briefly for directions at a street corner and she was taken aback after seeing him masturbating inside his car. A girl was abducted from the same street corner a few hours later.

The next day, based on the license plate number provided by the near-victim, police arrested Thompson.

Eddins said there is no physical evidence -- no prints, no telltale dust from driving around in the pineapple field or seminal fluid -- found on his client's car that link him to the girls.

Thompson was at work, at his parents' Mililani home fixing his father's computer or catching up with a boyhood friend at the time of the alleged incidents, said Eddins. "They got the wrong guy basically."

But Deputy Prosecutor Paul Wong argued that too many things added up. Besides their attacker's mode of operation, four of the girls identified their assailant as driving a gold- or bronze-colored car.

They described items inside and about the car and their assailant that police recovered or photographed as evidence the day Thompson was arrested:

A handcuff belt, the one he wore as part of his uniform at work at Oahu Community Correctional Center; the GM on the seat belt buckles and Bonneville inscribed on the dashboard of his gold Pontiac; a flashlight; a washcloth and a pair of athletic shoes; a Locals brand pair of slippers he was wearing the day of his arrest; and a roll of paper towels from which one girl said her attacker had pulled off a sheet and allowed her to wipe with after oral sex.

There was also seminal fluid found on the blouse of one of the victims that matched Thompson's DNA, Wong said. That particular DNA type occurs in less than 1 percent of the population, a claim that Eddins said did not uniquely identify his client.

He tried to rape his last victim twice, and if it wasn't for her "sheer will," he would have succeeded, Wong said. A doctor had testified the girl had suffered cuts consistent with her claims.