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Victim In Tampa Rape Shares Dread At Start Of Man's Trial

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By TOM BRENNAN | The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 15, 2008

TAMPA - A woman repeatedly raped after friends left her at a South Tampa bar in 2005 admitted today from the witness stand that details of the night are still sketchy.

"I've tried my best to forget about that night," the victim, now 35, said. "But I have to keep remembering it."

The woman hasn't forgotten the pain and fear she felt as she was repeatedly attacked over a three-hour period in the early morning of Aug. 11, 2005.

"My whole body ached," she said. "I thought he was going to kill me. You think you are going to die."

Amos Mequel Busby, 37, is charged with kidnapping and seven counts of sexual battery. His trial began today. The victim was the first witness.

She said the night started off on a happy note. She and friends gathered after work to attend another friend's graduation party at an East Tampa bar. The party later moved to the Green Iguana Bar & Grill at 4029. S. West Shore Blvd.

After the bar closed the woman went looking for her friends, who were supposed to drive her home, but she couldn't find them. She said her cell phone wouldn't work in the bar's parking lot and the bouncer wouldn't let her back in to use the bar's telephone.

In an effort to get a signal, the woman walked north on West Shore. She finally reached her friends by cell phone and started bawling them out for leaving her. They said they would return to pick her up.

Someone grabbed her from behind and started choking her.

"I remember trying to grab his arm, gasping for air and that he started dragging me off," she said.

She said the attacker knocked off her glasses, which prevented her from being able to identify him. Without her glasses, she testified "everything is blurry."

She said she repeatedly blacked out. She said she tried to run away but her attacker tackled her in the middle of West Shore and dragged her by her long black hair behind a business.

She said the man forced her to perform oral sex, raped her repeatedly and also used a bottle and a stick.

She said she told him she had AIDS in the hopes that he would stop. She said the man found a plastic bag that he used as a condom.

Police identified Busby from DNA taken from semen found on a piece of plastic at the scene.

She said she started having hope of surviving after the man started talking to her.

"He said 'I can't believe I did this to you,' " she said. The victim said she tried to feed him a line of how hard her life was in hopes of evoking sympathy.

"I tried to make him feel sorry for me," she said. "I had a little hope."

But the man led her to a wooded area and again raped her.

She said she didn't try to escape a second time.

"I was scared," she explained. "There weren't any [escape routes] unless I went through him."

The man finally let her go around 7 a.m.

"He hugged me and kissed me like I was his girlfriend," she said.

Defense attorneys tried to portray the sex as consensual, which the woman vehemently denied.

Defense attorney Joe Caimano said in his opening statement that the defense will present medical evidence that would contradict the victim's account.

The victim got testy with defense attorney Dion Hancock during cross examination.

When asked why she called friends when her attacker returned her cell phone instead of police, she said she was ashamed and scared.

"And I've seen too many movies where people like you yell at people like me," she said.

Reporter Tom Brennan can be reached at (813) 259-7698 or tbrennan@tampatrib.com.

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