Man Freed From Prison After 30 Years Now Charged In Lawrence Rape
SALEM (CBS/AP) - A man who spent 30 years in prison for a rape he says he didn't commit was ordered held without bail Monday on charges in another rape case.
George Perrot, 51, was arrested in January after allegedly raping an unconscious woman on a sidewalk in Lawrence. He was indicted in March. He pleaded not guilty Monday at his arraignment in Essex Superior Court in Salem on charges of rape, assault and battery on a police officer, resisting arrest and open and gross lewdness.
"The victim was revived using Narcan and reported to officers that the defendant allegedly offered her drugs and she did not remember anything after that," Carrie Kimball, a spokesperson for Essex District Attorney's Office, said in a statement Monday. "She reported not consenting to sexual contact nor was she in a dating relationship with the defendant."
Justin Khalil is the person who called 911 when he saw them together on the open sidewalk and neither of them responded to his shouts at them.
According to the police report, when an officer arrived, he found Perrot unconscious on top of the woman. When the officer woke Perrot, he witnessed Perrot rape the woman.
Then "he got up and he just started swinging at the officers. So I just helped the officer out," said Khalil.
Perrot was convicted and sent to prison for the rape of a 78-year-old woman in Springfield in 1985 when he was 17. But he was freed in 2016 based on flawed testimony about microscopic hair evidence.
Perrot is due back in court June 10 for a dangerousness hearing.
His attorney, Thomas Torrisi said, "The system has failed [Perrot], I certainly suggest on multiple levels. When he was released, he was released with no direction and he fell into what would be expected. A life of living on the street, of drugs and alcohol."
He added, "She made it perfectly clear that they had hung together, that they with funds that he had provided they bought drugs together, that when they returned, she used those drugs voluntarily at her own volition and as you can see they were both passed out, they were unconscious. So there's going to be an awful lot that has to be resolved here."
(© Copyright 2019 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
