By Rachel Dissell, The Plain
Dealer
CLEVELAND, Ohio – The trial of
a veteran Cleveland police officer charged with raping two women four years
apart started Wednesday.
Gregory Jones, 49, faces
multiple charges of rape, kidnapping and gross sexual imposition.
Jones, an officer of more than
20 years, has maintained his innocence and his attorneys say both woman lack
credibility and have told inconsistent stories. Jones has been on inactive duty
since his arrest.
The case is being tried in
Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Steven Gall's courtroom.
Assistant Cuyahoga County
Prosecutor Jesse Canonico told the jury that in July of 2012 Jones raped a
woman he met through friends while she was visiting from Chicago. He said the
woman, then 34, reported the crime to the friends she was visiting, to police
and went to the hospital to be examined.
After the crime was reported,
Canonico said, the victim told a Cleveland police Internal Affairs investigator
that a friend of Jones had offered her money to make the accusations "go
away."
The second woman, Canonico
said, saw a media report after Jones was arrested and called police to say he
had raped her four years earlier.
That woman, he said, did not
report the crime in 2008 because she had a drug problem and had engaged in
prostitution. Canonico said the woman had been at a party and accepted a ride
from Jones, who was in uniform but was in his personal car.
She said Jones told her after
raping her, "go ahead and report it nobody will ever take your word
against mine."
Defense attorney Steven Bradley
told the jury that each of the women had issues of character and credibility
that would be pointed out when they testified.
The woman who made the 2012
report had gambling and other financial problems, Bradley said. He acknowledged
that Jones had sex with the woman the evening he met her but that she likely
felt "used" when she realized he didn't have an interest in a
relationship with her.
Bradley said an acquaintance of
Jones' did call the woman to offer her money but that Jones did not ask him to
do so.
Bradley said the woman who
contacted police about the 2008 rape was drunk and high at the time. He said
there was no police, medical or forensic evidence to back up her version of
events and that she could not pick Jones out of a police lineup.
Prosecutors and defense
attorneys say there is connection between the women. The sister of one of the
victims is the aunt by marriage of the father of another of the victim's
daughters.
Canonico said Cleveland police
investigated that connection and found no information had been shared before
the reports were made.
He said the women's stories are
similar because Jones' "fingerprint" was the same in both cases.
"This trial isn't about
the badge," he said. "It's about what he did."
Bradley said the connection is
no coincidence.