A Dakota County jury is weighing the case of an alleged sexual assault that led to the suspect’s shooting by St. Paul police four years ago.
The prosecution says Joseph Javonte Washington, now 35, forced his girlfriend to drive to St. Paul after the assault at her Lakeville residence. He then ran and hid in a dumpster. When he emerged, an officer shot him. He was naked and, it turned out, unarmed.
The trial for Washington’s underlying case began last week and attorneys from both sides gave closing arguments Tuesday.
Washington’s attorney, Nico Ratkowski, told jurors that his client is innocent. He said Washington and his girlfriend were “engaging in consensual role play” and had agreed to video it.
Prosecutor Caitie Prokopowicz pointed out the woman testified that Washington had a knife, though Ratkowski said no knife can be seen in either of two videos played for jurors.
She also said what jurors saw on video was not acting. “She doesn’t deserve an Oscar because what happened to her and what you saw was real,” she said.
Prosecution says ‘voluminous’ evidence, defense says it doesn’t match accusations
The assault in Lakeville began about 6:30 p.m. Nov. 28, 2020, according to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
After the woman and Washington arrived in St. Paul and Washington fled, the woman told police what happened. Police were searching for Washington in St. Paul’s North End when an officer shot him about 9:20 p.m. Prosecutors said in 2021 that they would not charge the officer who shot Washington, who’d yelled from the dumpster that he had a gun.
Washington “abruptly jumped out of the dumpster” behind a funeral home and the officer reported that Washington wasn’t fully facing the officers and he couldn’t tell if there was a knife or gun in Washington’s hand, according a Minnesota Attorney General’s Office memo about their decision.
Joseph Javonte Washington (Courtesy of the Minnesota Department of Corrections)
Jurors in the case underway did not hear about the shooting in St. Paul. Washington has filed a federal lawsuit against the city of St. Paul and two officers, which is ongoing.
Prokopowicz told jurors Tuesday there is “voluminous” evidence in the Lakeville case: Two video recordings of the sexual assault, photographs of injuries that the woman sustained, medical reports about the care for the injuries, and photos from the woman’s residence that show “a struggle ensued.”
She asked jurors to use their common sense that the videos showed “a woman terrified for her life.” Washington punched her, Prokopowicz said, and in the video a black eye could be seen forming on the woman’s face and Washington could be heard threatening to kill her.
“You can hear how demeaning he is as he records this and threatens to post it online,” which he did, Prokopowicz added. The woman’s eye socket was later found to be broken.
Meanwhile, Ratkowski said the accusations and the evidence in the case “are immensely different.” One accusation, for example, was that Washington surprised the woman at her home, but the evidence was that he lived with her and had on-and-off for years, Ratkowski said.
The woman testified she was hiding her relationship with Washington from her parents because they didn’t approve of it, so she “had motive to lie” about Washington breaking into her apartment, Ratkowski said. The jury “may reasonably infer” that she “had motive to continue lying” about his actions, he added.
Attorneys give differing views
Washington and the woman’s relationship had been “on again and off again, and leaning toward off” as the woman was breaking things off, Prokopowicz said.
Ratkowski said Washington was the one who was breaking up with her.
On the night in question, Washington was under the influence of drugs, and he “used his power over” the woman with violence to try to stay in her home, Prokopowicz said. He sucker punched her in the face and held a knife to her neck, and forced her to perform a sex act on him, the prosecutor said.
Washington then threw the woman, who was only wearing a bathrobe, into a vehicle and forced her to drive at speeds of 100 mph on Interstate 35E to St. Paul until he caused a crash, Prokopowicz said. The defense attorney, however, said the woman testified that Washington escorted her “gently by the arm” to the garage.
Ratkowski said another possible version of what happened is the woman saw a letter that Washington wrote to her, they fought, and she decided to try to keep him in the relationship by performing a sex act on him. She offered to drive him to St. Paul and crashed her vehicle. “It’s one possible version of what happened,” Ratkowski told jurors. “… If the state did not convince you exactly what happened, you must vote not guilty.”
The woman also testified she didn’t recall seeing a knife in the vehicle or Washington holding it to her neck, or “being forced to drive at breakneck speeds,” Ratkowski said, but he said she was “somewhat consistent” about her claim that Washington had a knife in the bathroom and that she didn’t consent to his actions. Still, Ratkowski said her “consistency on a few of these issues does not enhance the story’s credibility.”
Deliberations continue
The woman wrote a letter to Washington dated June 2021 that included the sentences: “You and I both know you didn’t sexually assault me that night. I do forgive you for my eye,” Ratkowski read.
Washington has been locked up since he was released from the hospital, and recorded phone conversations from a correctional facility show he “manipulated” her into writing the letter, Prokopowicz said.
At one point, Ratkowski said to jurors that the case has echoes of Emmett Till. The African-American teenager was lynched in Mississippi in 1955 after he possibly whistled at a white woman.
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Prokopowicz objected to the reference and Judge Dannia Edwards told jurors to disregard the statement. Later, when jurors weren’t in the courtroom, Ratkowski said he raised the point because Washington is Black, the woman is white and the jury is “essentially all white.”
Edwards and the prosecution said while there is not a Black person on the jury, not everyone is white. Eleven of the jurors are men and one is a woman. There was also no testimony about race in the case, Edwards said.
Jurors are scheduled to continue deliberating Wednesday.
Washington is charged by the Dakota County Attorney’s Office with three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, kidnapping and second-degree assault.
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