Ex-cop accused of rape says sex was consensual

Former Sacramento police officer Gary Dale Baker told investigators he had sex with the elderly, stroke-impaired woman he is accused of raping, but insisted it was consensual, a detective testified Wednesday.

Baker admitted to the contact a day after he denied having sex with her at all, Detective Eugene Shim said at the former officer’s preliminary hearing in Sacramento Superior Court. Shim said Baker initially denied having sex with the woman when Sacramento police first informed him he was the target of a sexual-assault investigation last December.

Shim testified that Baker, now 50, said he unsuccessfully attempted to have sexual intercourse with the woman, now 78, about two months before police confronted him.

Baker also told detectives he later performed oral sex on the woman in the bedroom of her south area senior-living apartment complex, Shim testified under questioning from Deputy District Attorney Amy Holliday.

The woman suffered a stroke in 2009 that left her with a lingering condition called speech aphasia, which severely inhibits her ability to communicate through written or spoken words. She has been declared incompetent to testify, a potentially major hurdle for the prosecution if the case goes to trial.

Police and prosecutors have charged that Baker raped the woman twice, both times inside her apartment, on Nov. 24, 2010, and again on Sept. 20, 2012. Authorities said Baker was questioned, arrested and fired last December after the woman’s son mounted a game-hunting camera over her apartment door and turned over to police a video purportedly showing an assailant entering her apartment to attack her.

Asked if Baker told detectives he never forced the woman to do anything, Shim answered, “Yes.” Baker also told them he had a conversation with the woman about her family, that she showed him pictures of them and that she even gave him her phone number, Shim testified.

Baker’s admission that he had sex with the woman took place a day after detectives first told him they were looking into allegations of a sexual assault and that he matched the description of the suspect. The initial confrontation came at 5:20 a.m. Dec. 19, some 40 minutes before Baker was scheduled to begin his patrol shift in the neighborhood where the elderly woman lived.

During the preliminary hearing, the prosecution has presented testimony from police and family members who said it was clear to them the elderly woman claimed to have been raped. The defense has challenged the admissibility of the police and family testimony on hearsay grounds. Judge Patrick Marlette has not ruled on how much of it will be considered in the preliminary hearing, which has now taken seven days and is scheduled to resume Monday.

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Source: sacbee.com “Ex-cop accused of rape says sex was consensual,” October 7, 2013.

Tags: consensual, Criminal Law, former cop, Gary Dale Baker, rape, sex, Sex crime