Rape trial begins for man just out of prison for previous sex crime

On a November Sunday morning nearly three years ago, an east Macon woman’s children were upstairs in their apartment getting ready for church when there was a knock at the door.

Their mother, still dressed in her night clothes, answered the door.

Frederick Bernard Harris, a childhood friend of her husband’s, had been late to take her husband to work that morning, she said Tuesday.

The men had recently become reacquainted after years apart. Harris had offered to take the woman’s husband to work after the family’s only car broke down, she said.

But that morning, Nov. 10, 2013, the woman’s husband got another ride. Harris still showed up at the door of her apartment.

After Harris learned that her husband was already gone, the woman alleges that Harris raped her.

A trial for Harris, 39, began Tuesday in Bibb County Superior Court. He’s charged with rape, sexual assault, criminal attempt to commit aggravated sodomy and false imprisonment.

Harris was arrested about 12 hours after he left the woman’s apartment, prosecutor Dorothy Hull said in her opening statement to the jury.

Testifying Tuesday, the now 30-year-old woman said Harris threatened that he’d say they’d been having an affair if she told police or her husband what had happened.

Harris’ lawyer, Andrew Jenkins, told jurors, however, that the encounter was consensual and there’s no “credible evidence” that his client raped the woman or otherwise assaulted her.

He pointed to inconsistencies in the woman’s version of events and discrepancies in the evidence.

For example, the woman said Harris held her wrist, bruising it, and police officers took photos that purportedly showed swelling. A nurse has said the woman’s wrist wasn’t injured, Jenkins told jurors.

He posed the question, “Are you going to believe the police officer or the nurse?”

State prison records show that Harris was released from prison on Feb. 22, 2013, after serving nearly a decade for statutory rape.

In October 2003, he pleaded guilty to allegations that he pulled a gun on a 13-year-old girl in January 2002, ordered her into his car and drove her to his house, where he raped her, according to a motion filed by prosecutors in the current case.

Charges related to another case were dismissed after he pleaded guilty to raping the 13-year-old. In that case, he was charged with approaching a 15-year-old girl at her apartment complex’s playground in February 2003, inviting her to his home and forcing her to have sex with him, according to the motion.

This story was originally published August 2, 2016 at 6:02 PM with the headline "Rape trial begins for man just out of prison for previous sex crime."