Man accused of rape testifies that woman attacked him

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Posted 4:04PM on Tuesday, December 3, 2002

GASTONIA, NORTH CAROLINA - A man accused of raping a woman in her apartment earlier this year denied the accusation, saying instead the woman attacked him when he asked her for a cigarette. Aaron LeBlanc, who was previously acquitted on unrelated rape charges in Georgia, testified Monday that the woman, who lived in the apartment above the one where he was staying, was leaving her apartment the morning of March 18 when he stepped outside. ``I wanted to talk to her,'' LeBlanc said. ``I thought she was an attractive girl.'' He asked for a cigarette ``to break the ice'' and she replied ``in a snooty voice'' she only had one left. ``One of my downfalls is I say something before I think,'' LeBlanc testified, saying he then called the woman a name. She then cursed him and swung at him, he said. ``She was swinging wild, crazy,'' LeBlanc said, adding that she sliced a finger on his left hand with her car keys. ``Blood started to go, blood was flying everywhere,'' LeBlanc said. ``I grabbed my hand and stuck it in my mouth real quick.'' LeBlanc said he then struck the woman twice, first with his open left hand, then with his closed right fist. She fell down, he said. When she got up, LeBlanc said, she told him he was going to go to jail. Then she picked up her purse and cell phone and got in her car. He said he went inside his apartment before she left. During LeBlanc's testimony, lawyers tiptoed around why he was living with his brother. The jury hasn't been told in court that LeBlanc came to Gastonia after being acquitted on three rape charges in Richmond County, Ga., on Feb. 21. When police arrived, LeBlanc said he expected to be charged with assault. He said the woman's allegations of rape surprised him. A physician who treated the woman at Carolinas Medical Center said there was no physical trauma to the woman's genitals, although she had bruises around her neck and an abrasion on her knee. SBI Agent Jed Taub testified earlier in the trial no semen was found, although he said the rape kit was not done properly and didn't include swabs it should have. LeBlanc testified that he was never inside the woman's apartment. But last week, SBI Agent Brenda Bissette said blood found on the woman's couch throw was LeBlanc's to a mathematical certainty of ``18.9 million trillion to one.'' His blood also was found on underwear collected from her bedroom and on her injured knee. His and her blood were found mixed on a paper towel found in her kitchen trash can, Bissette said. Under cross-examination, LeBlanc denied having watched the woman through her window. He said he'd seen her coming and going from her apartment while looking out his window. The trial is expected to resume Wednesday with a last defense witness, who wasn't available to testify Tuesday.