Trial Ordered in Center City Home Invasion and Rape Case
By Steve Tawa
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A Honduran national charged with raping a woman in her Rittenhouse Square-area apartment this past June has been ordered held for trial without bail.
Assistant district attorney Kelly Harrell says the alleged victim had been out with friends at a nearby bar and, while walking home, 27-year-old Milton Garcia, a restaurant kitchen worker, followed her and grabbed her from behind, just a half block from her apartment, near 19th and Spruce Streets.
"She described walking home in one of the safest parts of the city, and being approached by a stranger," Harrell said after today's court proceeding.
The woman, a 26-year-old doctor, testified that he said to her, in a heavy Spanish accent, "You go to you apartment." She said she was deathly afraid.
"He told her to shut up. Then, when she tried to shrug him off, he grabbed her by the back of the neck and forced her into her apartment building," Harrell recounts.
Judge James DeLeon dropped kidnapping and robbery charges, but Garcia was held for court on all of the primary charges including rape, sexual assault, involuntary deviant sexual intercourse, and aggravated assault.
Prosecutors say they have a DNA match.
Detectives say her phone was found inside Garcia's South Philadelphia apartment and her keys were in his pocket when he was taken into custody.
Garcia will be arraigned October 2nd.