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Woman reports rape in bar where friend sought job

The suspect, who was arrested, tells a detective he had sex with the woman, but said it was consensual.

By STEVE THOMPSON
Published December 8, 2005

NEW PORT RICHEY - It happened about 2 a.m., closing time at Tequila Bay.

A 21-year-old woman says she was raped then.

She says she was at the bar Nov. 27 with a friend who was looking for a job. She had drunk a few rum cocktails and was waiting for her friend to drive her home.

Then the bar's owner, the woman told a detective, asked them to come to the back room for a pre-employment talk.

Irvin Wayland Morris, 59, locked them inside before picking the woman up and putting her in a chair, Pasco County sheriff's spokesman Doug Tobin said. Then Morris pulled off her pants and had sex with her while she told him to stop, Tobin said. The friend told a detective she tried to pull him from her, but Morris pushed her away.

Afterward, Morris performed sexual acts on the friend, also 21, before a knock on the door from a bar employee broke it up, and Morris let the women out of the room, Tobin said. He declined to say whether those sexual acts were consensual.

When the woman alleging the rape got home, Tobin said, she didn't shower or change clothes, and called 911 within the hour on the advice of her mother.

Morris was arrested Tuesday. He was being held in the county jail Wednesday on $50,000 bail on a charge of involuntary sexual battery. He told a detective he had sex with the woman, but said it was consensual, Tobin said.

A manager at the bar, David King Jr., said Wednesday that Morris is not its owner. It is owned by a corporation, he said, and Morris is an old friend of one of the corporation's officers. Public records support his assertion.

King said Morris was not even an employee, but would stop in to look after the place for his friend. Morris will not be allowed to return until the case is resolved, King said.

But King also questioned the truth of what the two women told authorities.

"Unfortunately, it's a bar," he said. "It's a crazy atmosphere. People get drunk and say things that aren't always true."

King said the two women had been pestering management about a job for some time, and he thinks Morris had them back in the office to show them the work schedule was full.

The woman's allegations, he said, are a product of "spite and anger" over not getting hired.

Steve Thompson covers crime in Pasco County. He can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6245 or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6245. His e-mail address is sthompson@sptimes.com

[Last modified December 8, 2005, 00:50:19]