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A Pensacola man whose DNA linked him to the rape of three women at knifepoint was sentenced to a minimum 50 years on one of the charges.
Christopher Wade, 36, faced one count of sexual battery with a deadly weapon as he sat before an Escambia County jury Thursday. Wade attempted to make the case that all three women who had accused him were prostitutes and the sex was consensual.
Wade was arrested on the initial charge in May of 2016 for the sexual battery that happened in October of 2015. The victim told police she was walking alone in the area of West Bobe street around 5:30 a.m. on a Saturday to a methadone clinic when a man came up behind her on a bicycle and starting chatting with her. She said he put his arm around her and she felt a knife at her throat. When the victim kicked her legs out in an attempt to escape, she fell and he assaulted her.
The defense pointed to the fact that the victim ran home after the attack and woke up her husband to take her to hospital, but they stopped at the methadone clinic first. The defense claimed that if she was raped, she would have gone to the hospital immediately.
The state argued that the clinic was only open until 8 a.m. on Saturdays and the victim would have had to wait several days without medication and almost surely become ill if she hadn't visited the clinic. The woman was in the hospital by 8 a.m. that same day undergoing a sexual assault examination kit.
Investigators at trial said it was less than a one in 700 billion chance that the DNA found in the first victim's sexual assault kit could have been matched to anyone but Wade. The police investigating the woman's case used that DNA profile to match Wade to two other rape cases in which the victims said they were sexually assaulted at knifepoint by a black man on a bicycle in Escambia County.
One of the other victims was walking home from a bar on Cervantes Street in January of 2014 when she said a black man approached her on a bicycle. She said he asked her to go into a field nearby and she complied because she knew he had a knife, then he raped her.
The second victim, whose alleged sexual assault happened in February of 2015, said she was smoking crack cocaine in a wooded area late that night with a male acquaintance when a black man on a bicycle came by and both men demanded sexual acts at knifepoint.
Assistant State Attorney Cassandra Andreas told the jury that the three women didn't know each other and none of them knew Wade, so they had no reason to make up such similar allegations.
Wade took the stand Thursday afternoon, telling the jury that he likely did have sex with the three women as he often frequented prostitutes, but he said he didn't remember the circumstances of the encounters. He said he does usually carry a knife, which is a small knife he claims is used for cleaning under his fingernails and cutting his toenails.
The primary victim whose case was on trial Thursday said the man offered her money before he raped her, and she said she "wasn't that kind of girl." The second victim, who was allegedly assaulted on Cervantes Street, said her rapist had offered her money after the attack also as payment. The defense told the jury the women did accept payment for the sex, and therefore it was consensual.
Wade bowed his head to pray in the minutes before the jury came back in for closing arguments, but it took a jury less than an hour to convict him guilty as charged. He was sentenced on the spot to life with a 50-year mandatory minimum.
After this trial, Wade will face sexual battery with a deadly weapon charges in relation to the two other victims. Both of those cases remain open.
https://www.pnj.com/story/news/crime/2017/02/23/dna-links-pensacola-man-three-rapes/98275856/
