63-year-old woman raped
by intruder in her apartment

A man entered a 63-year-old woman’s home and raped her on Feb. 24, according to police.

Investigators have sent DNA evidence collected at the Oakview Road apartment to a state lab in hopes of identifying the attacker.

The woman said she forgot to put the stopper in place that locks her sliding-glass back door the night before.

A man came in the back door, removed his clothes and went upstairs to the woman’s bedroom, where he raped her.

The attack was reported about 7 a.m. Police brought in dogs to try to track the man, but were unsuccessful.

The victim did not know her attacker, police Capt. Tim Splain said. He noted that such attacks are rare; most rapes involve a known person.

Investigators are looking for any links between the case and a reported Peeping Tom last month and a break-in last week at the same apartment complex.

The suspect is described as Hispanic, between 5 feet, 4 inches and 5 feet, 7 inches tall, weighing between 145 and 155 pounds, with short black hair.

Splain said that the last stranger rape in Asheville that he could remember was in 2006, when a woman was abducted on her way to the YMCA in Biltmore Park. No one was arrested in that case, and the case was closed after someone involved in it refused to cooperate with investigators.

Anyone with information about the attack is asked to call the Asheville Police Department at 252-1110.

Asheville teenager charged
with robbing 5 with shotgun

A 17-year-old was arrested on multiple robbery charges for his alleged involvement in a robbery at an Asheville home.

Martin Luther Jackson Jr., 17, of Aurora Drive, was charged with five counts of robbery with a dangerous weapon.

Police say Jackson and three others robbed five people with a shotgun Feb. 18, stealing two X-Box 360 video game systems, a video game and about $300 in cash.

Three other teens were arrested last week in the case, including Travis Shaqwann, 17, of Kirkman Road and Aaron Javon Marquise Hill, 17, of Livingston Street. Both were charged with multiple counts of robbery and one count of second-degree kidnapping for moving one victim against her will.

The third teen, a 15-year-old, was not identified by police.

Former Medford lieutenant
cuts deal, agrees to testify

One of former Sheriff Bobby Medford’s top lieutenants agreed to testify against his former boss last week, in exchange for a reduced sentence.

John David “Johnny” Harrison, 66, pleaded guilty on Feb. 27 to interfering with commerce by threat or violence for his part in an elaborate extortion scheme involving illegal gambling operators in Buncombe County.

Harrison is the first of Medford’s top staff to strike a deal with the federal government.

Medford, his former lieutenant Ronnie Eugene “Butch” Davis and former reserve Capt. Guy Kenneth Penland face numerous charges including taking bribes and protection money from business owners who illegally maintained video poker machines. The three men will be tried starting march 25.

Harrison, who worked with Medford since his 1994 election, said he took money from video poker operators from 2000-2005, supposedly to finance his boss’s political campaigns and golf tournaments.

However, he admitted that most of the money actually went straight to Medford and Penland, not the election account.
Medford lost to Sheriff Van Duncan last year.

Harrison also admitted to cashing checks from gambling operators at a store that housed illegal video poker machines. The store would include the checks, which Medford endorsed, in its business deposits and Harrison would bring Medford the cash.

North Carolina banned video gambling in July. Prior to that time, businesses were allowed to keep up to three machines that could pay up to $10 in store merchandise.

However, prosecutors say that gambling operators bribed Medford, his deputies and other law-enforcement officers to protect them while they continued to pay out cash payments.

One company made at least $14 million in Western North Carolina with hundreds of illegal machines.

Prosecutors claim that Medford received up to $5,000 at a time, often in plain envelopes left on his desk at the Sheriff’s Office.

So far, 24 people, including Harrison and former Sheriff’s Capt. Tracy Bridges, have pleaded guilty in the federal government’s investigation into illegal gambling in the region.