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Boy, 13, found guilty of rape
By DAVID KARP
© St. Petersburg Times, TAMPA -- Jurors looked at the woman's drawing of her attacker, then turned to the 13-year-old boy at the defense table. Next, they fixed their gaze on a police artist's sketch. Their eyes moved again to the defendant's features. Back and forth, over and over, the jurors compared the faces. "Ladies and gentleman, that is him," prosecutor Michael Sinacore said, pointing to Tavaris Knight, whom he called the boy with the baby face. "Find him guilty." When the six-person jury found him guilty after four hours of deliberation Friday, Knight's face didn't twitch. A defense lawyer stood at his side, her arm resting on his back, as the clerk read the verdict. When the bailiff put him in shackles, Knight's face tightened, and he looked angry. Just 12 at the time of the rape, Knight could face from 121/2 years to life in prison. Circuit Judge Jack Espinosa Jr. could hand down a lighter sentence if he finds that Knight qualifies under Florida's youthful offender law. The judge set sentencing for Oct. 18. The jury found Knight guilty of attempted robbery, kidnapping and one count of sexual battery. The woman's rape in Copeland Park in the middle of the day last November stunned residents, who demanded more security at the park near the University of South Florida. The city promised $50,000 in lighting and $25,000 in surveillance equipment. In court, the case hinged on the woman identifying Knight as her rapist. She said the skinny boy with close-cropped hair stood over her, holding a gun to her head. She had gone to Copeland Park about 11:30 a.m. with her four daughters: 4-year-old twins, a 2-year-old and a 1-year-old. They came with snacks, juice boxes and a bag with a smiley face. Suddenly, a boy holding a gun approached the woman from behind. He demanded money and ordered her into the woods. Her children were a few feet away, screaming. She escaped after grabbing the gun, which turned out to be fake, and running. Later that day, the woman, who is not being identified by the St. Petersburg Times, drew a sketch of her rapist for police. The next day, she helped a police artist create a fuller composite. Two days later, the woman and her husband returned to the park. About 100 yards from the woods, they found a silver toy gun. Police would find Knight's fingerprint on the gun and match it to one on file from a previous arrest. When police went to arrest him, they found him hiding under a car inside a shed about 1:30 a.m. with fake cocaine on him. A middle-school dropout, Knight lives with his mother and grandmother. In court, prosecutor Michael Sinacore showed jurors the victim's drawing, then the composite, and then Knight's photograph. Later, he walked over to Knight and held the photos close to him. He ridiculed the idea that Knight was a child incapable of violence. "That young man is not a child," Sinacore said. "He stopped being a child when he forced her into the woods and raped her." In her closing remarks to the jury, Assistant Public Defender Ursula Richardson told jurors that Knight was a boy falsely accused of a crime committed by a man. The sketch did not even look like him, she said. "Those long thin lips on that picture do not belong to Tavaris Knight," she said. She reminded jurors that the victim had told at least two people that she thought her attacker had a gold tooth, something Knight does not have. She also faulted the police artist for creating a sketch that could match any African-American man. The artist relied on a 30-year-old face book, which had few updated African-American faces. "They just described any black man in the U.S. of A.," Richardson said. She criticized police for failing to search Knight's house for clothes. Experts also did not match any DNA, blood or hair on a condom left at the crime scene to Knight. "You have to see reasonable doubt all over this case," Richardson said. "It is almost walking. It is walking in the form of Tavaris Knight." Angered by the verdict, Knight's relatives screamed at a television cameraman in the courtroom. - David Karp can be reached at (813) 226-3376 or karp@sptimes.com.
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