Pizza Parlor Regret

The client was accused of raping a young woman. The two had met at a pizza parlor in Squirrel Hill when they both arrived at the same time to pick up their food orders. Through the investigation and discovery, the defense learned that the young woman had some intellectual and behavioral issues that caused her to reside in a group-home.

As the two waited in the pizza parlor for their orders, they began talking and apparently hit it off. They picked up their food, left the restaurant, and then they walked to the back yard of a nearby house and had sex under a row of hedges.

After the accuser returned to the group-home, she told her friends what happened. They convinced her that she had been raped, and they contacted the police. Attorney Sontz advised his client to proceed to a very rare non-jury trial in a rape case. Essentially, the defense argued that the accuser consented to having sex with the defendant. However, she changed her mind about what happened after her friends at the group-home questioned her decision to have sex with a complete stranger in the backyard of a house next to a pizza parlor.

The judge agreed that the sex was consensual and the defendant was found NOT GUILTY of all charges.