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Man convicted of 2008 rape

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By TODD LESKANIC

tleskanic@tampatrib.com

Published: October 29, 2009

NEW PORT RICHEY - James Cregger's attempt to explain away a sexual battery charge with a conspiracy theory failed.

A jury deliberated for 21/2 hours Wednesday before finding Cregger guilty of the 2008 rape of a 36-year-old woman. Circuit Judge Michael Andrews sentenced him to 15 years in prison, the maximum penalty.

Cregger's conviction came even though jurors didn't hear testimony from the victim, who died of a drug overdose in May. Cregger didn't budge from his story that his ex-wife, Deena LaRossa, concocted the story of the rape to get back at him for falling behind on his child support payments.

"I am not a rapist," Cregger told Andrews after the verdict. "My only question through all of this has been: Why has my ex-wife and her ex-husband been making my life a living hell, and hunt me down and concoct this whole thing against me to put me away for 15 years?"

Cregger sobbed loudly after the verdict was read. His mother, Deborah Leder, told Andrews she believes her son is innocent.

"I know deep down in my heart, because I'm a Christian, and I know God knows that my son did not commit these hideous crimes," said Leder, who later collapsed in hysterics and had to be helped from the courtroom.

LaRossa and her friends Stacy Davis and Betty Jo Tagerson were key witnesses for the prosecution. They testified they saw Cregger and the victim walking on Adams Street in the wee hours of July 4, 2008. They said the woman appeared teary-eyed and scared as they stopped their van to talk to Cregger.

The woman made her way to the front passenger's side and whispered in LaRossa's ear, "Please don't leave me. He just raped me." LaRossa opened the van door, and the woman climbed inside.

The victim began the night of July 3, 2008, at her brother's New Port Richey apartment for a get-together. Cregger and his girlfriend were at the party. The woman left after arguing with her boyfriend, telling her brother she was going to walk to a friend's house.

Cregger already had left the party and gone to his nearby apartment.

Assistant State Attorney Chris Jensen said the woman met Cregger as she was walking to her friend's house and he was walking to a convenience store.

Jensen said Cregger grabbed the woman, dragged her to the dark backyard of a house on Illinois Avenue and raped her on a beach chair. Cregger had lived at the house and knew its owner, Joseph Catania.

The victim eventually talked Cregger into letting her check on her child at home. She and Cregger were walking on Adams Street when LaRossa's van approached.

"This was not consensual sex," Jensen said in his closing argument. "Someone who had consensual sex with somebody does not go walking barefoot down the street crying and go to the first people she comes across crying, saying, 'Help me. Help me.'"

DNA found on the victim matched Cregger's, prosecutors said.

Cregger testified that he and the victim had consensual oral sex after she complained that her boyfriend had beaten her during an argument. He said the woman wanted to get back at her boyfriend.

"That's the God's honest truth," Cregger said from the stand.

Cregger's aunt, Judy Thomas, said her family will continue to work to prove his innocence.

"He's a good boy," she said outside the courtroom.

Reporter Todd Leskanic can be reached at (813) 731-8098.

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