The alleged victim of a tanning salon owner accused of being a serial rapist gave testimony Monday of the alleged July 2009 attack.
The woman is a former emploee of Marc Winner. She worked for him while attending college before moving to California—but she returned in the summer of ’09. They stayed in touch via phone calls while she was away, so when he called her when she was back in town, it didn’t seem out of the ordinary, she said in court, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
Winner showed up uninvited to a dinner in the West Loop where the victim and her friend were dining, she said. But the two agreed to follow him to see upgrades to a nearby tanning salon he owned, she said. When her friend said she needed to use the bathroom, they went to Winner’s apartment where she did a “small amount” of cocaine, she said, according to the newspaper.
She said her friend eventually left the apartment and Winner deadbolted the door.
“I immediately knew I was in trouble,” she said.
She said over the next several hours Winner took her phone away, only returning it for a few minutes so she could call her friend who had left, but got no answer, the Sun-Times reported.
She walked to the salon with Winner to use the landline there, she said. She then called her sister and asked her to call 911, she said. When Winner took her phone back and saw she had called her sister, he took her back to the apartment here he raped her, she said, according to the paper.
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She claimed she had claymidia hoping that would stop him from raping her, she said, but he just insulted her and continued, the paper reported.
She said the attack lasted about 10 minutes before she grabbed her things and fled to a nearby grocery store where a worker called the police for her.
Winner’s attorney mainly focused on her admission of using cocaine and also referred to opportunities she ahd to run away that she didn’t take, the newspaper reported.
Winner is charged in an additional three other sex assault cases.
