During the first week of January, Jenny, Vanessa and Vanessa’s one year old son moved into a new apartment.
Snow had fallen that day and the streets were slippery with ice, causing their rented moving truck to get stuck in the snow. Thereafter, the two women went across the street to a convenience store to get help unloading their heavy pieces of furniture from the truck. A store clerk offered to drive them to a nearby community center to get Herbert, who was the clerk’s brother, to help move the furniture. Shortly thereafter, Herbert and his cousin, who also had agreed to help, began moving the furniture. As the snowfall increased, they stopped moving the furniture, and Herbert drove the women to their former apartment. A few minutes later, Herbert returned and explained that his car was stuck in the snow and asked the victims if he could use their telephone to call for assistance. After using the telephone, Herbert asked Jenny if he could have her puppy as payment for moving the furniture. She told Herbert no, but that she would get him another dog from the same litter.
The following day, Jenny left the apartment and returned to discovered that the puppy was missing. She then went to the convenience store and asked the clerk to tell Herbert that she wanted him to return the dog.
On January 8, Jenny and Vanessa, who were then sixteen and eighteen years old, respectively, invited a female friend, Monica, and two males, Robert, who is Vanessa’s cousin, and Thomas, to their apartment to socialize. At some point, Jenny, Monica and Robert got hungry and decided to go across the street to a McDonald’s restaurant to get something to eat.
After the three left, Herbert appeared at the girls’ apartment to confront Jenny about her accusations that he had stolen the puppy. While Vanessa and Herbert talked in the doorway, two men wearing masks, at least one of whom was armed with a gun, came up behind Herbert and forcibly pushed him forward into the apartment. Once inside, the masked men announced that it was a robbery and ordered Vanessa, her son, Herbert and Thomas into the kitchen and to lie on the floor, where Vanessa and Thomas were searched and robbed of their belongings.
The two men then told Vanessa to take her clothes off. When she began to cry, one of the masked men hit her in the face with the handgun. Vanessa began undressing and when she was completely naked, the masked men ordered her to get “on all fours”. Vanessa complied and one of the masked man get in front of her and stuck his erect penis in her mouth. At the same time, the other masked man got on his knees and penetrated Vanessa from behind.
Ten minutes later, Jenny, Monica and Robert returned to the apartment. When Jenny knocked on the apartment door, someone inside unlocked it and, as she opened the door, one of the masked men held a gun to her face. Vanessa was crying while sitting on the kitchen floor with her pants around her ankles.
At that point, the taller of the masked men forced the three to lie on the floor. Shortly thereafter, he ordered Jenny and Monica to go into the child’s bedroom. After ordering Jenny and Monica to remove their clothes, the taller masked man forced them at gunpoint to perform cunnilingus on one another while he watched. Jenny performed oral sex on Monica., and then Monica performed oral sex on Jenny. The masked men also demanded that the two girls use their fingers to penetrate each other’s vaginas; again, the women complied. During these acts, both intruders watched and made further demands, telling the women again to “suck that pussy” and “do it deeper.”
At some point, Herbert walked into the bedroom and took off his jacket. He then got on his knees, and the masked man ordered Jenny to perform fellatio on Herbert. After Jenny tried to bite Herbert’s penis, Herbert yelled at her to stop and to “suck it right.”
The masked man then told Herbert to “fuck her like she’s never been fucked before.”
Herbert then pushed Jenny onto her back, spread her legs and put his erect penis into the girl’s vagina. During the sex act, the masked man ordered Monica to lick Herbert’s buttocks. Before Herbert ejaculated in Jenny, he told her to look at his face and asked her if she wanted him to come back later that evening.
The masked man then turned off the lights and left the bedroom, leaving Monica, Jenny and Herbert in the room alone for ten minutes. Thomas then was called into the bedroom, and the masked man grabbed him on the back of the neck and demanded that he perform cunnilingus on Jenny and Monica. When the girls were lying down on the floor with her legs open, Thomas got down on them, licking their vaginas.
Shortly thereafter, the two masked men put everyone except Herbert in the bedroom, told them to count to 100 and warned them that if they reported the incident to the police they would be killed. While the girls and their friends were waiting for the masked men and Herbert to leave, they could hear the men rummaging through the apartment as they ransacked it.
Herbert and the others then fled the scene together. A while later, the victims left the bedroom and Vanessa then called the police.
Months later, a jury convicted Herbert of orchestrating the ordeal in what the prosecution called “an elaborate fiction” spun to give him a pretext to have sex with the girls and loot their property.
All three girls and their male friend testified that Herbert had planned the mayhem and knew the masked assailants, neither of whom were ever arrested.
But a tearful Herbert said that he followed the assailants’ orders because he feared for his own wife and child.
Herbert’s attorney, argued that Herbert was unable to become aroused, and testimony showed that one of the girls was forced to perform oral sex on him first.
The attorney said this was one of many signs that Herbert was “forced to do something and felt he had no alternative.”