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Pasco man guilty in home invasion, rape

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By TODD LESKANIC | The Tampa Tribune

Published: April 22, 2009

DADE CITY - Good defense attorneys make a living crossing up prosecution witnesses, challenging their credibility and giving jurors a reason to disbelieve their testimony.

But casting doubt on DNA evidence can border on the impossible. It's hardly shocking, then, that a jury needed only 45 minutes today to find Bobby Lee Black III guilty in the 2007 attack and rape of a 66-year-old woman.

The jury of five men and one woman convicted Black of home invasion robbery, two counts of sexual battery and a single count of battery on a person over the age of 65. Black, 20, of Zephyrhills will face a mandatory life sentence when he returns to court May 26.

The victim, now 68, declined to comment following the trial.

A Florida Department of Law Enforcement analyst testified that Black's DNA matched DNA found on the victim. The analyst placed the odds of the DNA coming from someone else at 1 in 330 trillion.

Without DNA, prosecutors would have been left with a victim who couldn't identify Black as one of her attackers and the changing testimony of co-defendant Andre Brathwaite.

In her testimony Tuesday, the woman said the two men who attacked her in the early morning of March 1, 2007, wore masks. She awoke to one of the men straddling her while holding a knife to her throat.

After demanding money and jewelry, the men dragged her into the living room of her home in the Winters Mobile Home Park off State Road 54 and took turns raping her. They left with the woman's camera, rosary beads and keys.

As they left, one of the men kicked her in the face.

Authorities say the second man was 20-year-old Jathniel McMichael of Zephyrhills. He will be tried separately and also faces a possible life sentence.

Brathwaite, 20, is accused of driving Black and McMichael to and from the attack. He testified for the state, telling jurors that he, Black and McMichael were together at a party late on Feb. 28, 2007.

Brathwaite said he drove McMichael and Black to a church parking lot on Black's orders. Black and McMichael got out of the car and were gone for about 20 minutes.

When they returned, Black and McMichael said they had robbed someone, Brathwaite said. He said he asked Black about the attack a few days later after seeing news reports about it; that's when Black told him he and McMichael were responsible.

Six days after the attack, a Zephyrhills police officer stopped Brathwaite for an expired tag. Black was riding with him. Drugs were found in the car along with the woman's keys, rosary beads and camera, investigators said. Brathwaite was arrested on drug charges but Black was released.

Prosecutors said Brathwaite initially lied to investigators about the attack because he was scared of Black and didn't want to get his friends in trouble.

Black and McMichael are also charged in the March 27, 2007, attack on a 68-year-old woman who lived alone in a Zephyrhills trailer park.

The woman was raped, forced to withdraw money from her bank account and then driven in her minivan to an old quarry in Zephyrhills. The two men pushed her into the quarry and then rolled her minivan in after her, authorities said. She managed to crawl out and get help.

Black and McMichael will be tried separately in the second attack. DNA taken from the victim also matched Black's, according to trial testimony. McMichael is not accused of rape in the second attack.

Reporter Todd Leskanic can be reached at (727) 815-1084.

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