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https://www.dispatch.com/gcdn/authoring/2015/02/11/NCOD/ghows-OH-d663fb96-4f0a-498b-abf5-f2c0030cdffc-1e8f1ce7.jpeg?width=300&height=406&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp
Paul E. Hubert, credit The Columbus Dispatch.
A homeless woman who was raped under an East Side bridge was so intent on justice that she sometimes walked 8 miles from the Whitehall area to the Franklin County courthouse to attend her attacker’s court hearings.
Her persistence paid off yesterday when Paul E. Hubert, 54, pleaded guilty to rape and was sentenced to three years in prison.
The 47-year-old woman shook her head when Common Pleas Judge Colleen O’Donnell asked whether she wanted to make a statement in court. Then she cried quietly into a tissue as the sentence was imposed.
In addition to the prison sentence, which was recommended by prosecution and defense attorneys as part of a plea agreement, Hubert must register as a sex offender every 90 days for the rest of his life. The maximum penalty for the offense is 11 years.
“He didn’t get as much time as I thought he should, but he’s getting his due justice,” the woman said after the hearing. “He has to report for the rest of his life.
“I just have to have these feelings for the rest of my life. I only have to report to myself."
The woman was sleeping under an E. Broad Street bridge that spans Big Walnut Creek just east of Hamilton Road when she was raped on the afternoon of March 12. She said she usually stayed there with her then-boyfriend but was alone when she awoke to a
stranger attacking her. He struck her in the head repeatedly and forced intercourse, she said. After he ran away, she walked to a nearby convenience store and, bleeding from a head injury, asked a clerk to call police.
DNA found on the woman during an examination at Mount Carmel East hospital was entered into a statewide database and provided a link to Hubert, who had a 2007 conviction for receiving stolen property. He lived in Springfield in Clark County but often
visited the East Side to see a girlfriend, said Columbus police detective James Ashenhurst of the sexual-assault unit.
Hubert told police that he met the woman on Hamilton Road and paid her for sex, but his description of events was contradicted by her injuries and where his DNA was found, Ashenhurst said.
The case was scheduled to go to trial this week, but with the woman prepared to testify, Hubert agreed to the plea deal.
“He was counting on her not showing up,” Ashenhurst said. “If it wasn’t for her cooperation, he would have walked.”
The woman said she found her way to at least a half-dozen court dates in the past 11 months, sometimes getting bus passes from prosecutors, other times panhandling for bus fare. She said she walked to the Downtown courthouse at least twice, a journey
that took about three hours.
“I didn’t want to see him do it to anyone else,” she said of her determination to attend the hearings. “If he would do that to me, imagine what he might do to his next victim.”
Assistant County Prosecutor Michael Hughes told the judge about the woman’s extraordinary efforts to cooperate in prosecuting Hubert.
“Not in every case do we have people who show this kind of resolve,” Hughes said. “She always got here, no matter what her circumstances.”
She tearfully embraced Hughes after the hearing.
The Dispatch does not identify victims of sex crimes unless they agree to be named.
Hubert’s attorney, Brian Rigg, told the judge that his client has a problem with drugs and alcohol that causes him to be “a completely different person.”
Hubert declined to make a statement in court.
The woman said she has been homeless for two years and has remained on the streets since the attack. She said she wants to look for permanent housing now that the case is behind her.
The Community Shelter Board has placed a priority on making sure there is a place for every woman who needs shelter, in the hope of preventing the type of ordeal that the rape victim experienced, spokeswoman Sara Loken said yesterday.
Since last summer, the board has increased shelter beds for women by 70 percent, and a waiting list no longer exists for women seeking shelter, she said. On Monday night, 316 women were in shelters in the city.
“It’s a very scary situation” for homeless women, particularly those who are unaccompanied on the streets, Loken said. “The fact that she’s still on the streets is one of the things that’s most concerning about this. There’s no reason for
that.”
Those needing shelter can call one of two homeless hotlines: 1-888-474-3587 for single men and women and 614-253-7970 for families with children.
jfutty@dispatch.com
@johnfutty
https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/crime/2015/02/11/homeless-woman-walks-miles-to/23953275007/
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