Com. of Pa. v. Kretezitis
| Decision Date | 16 December 1933 |
| Docket Number | 339-1933 |
| Citation | 169 A. 417,111 Pa.Super. 5 |
| Parties | Com. of Pa. v. Kretezitis, Appellant |
| Court | Pennsylvania Superior Court |
Argued October 9, 1933
Appeal by defendant from judgment and sentence of Q. S Philadelphia County, August T., 1932, No. 301, in the case of Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. William Kretezitis.
Trial of an indictment charging assault and battery with intent to rape. Before Barnett, P. J., 41st Judicial District specially presiding.
The facts are stated in the opinion of the Superior Court.
Verdict of guilty upon which judgment and sentence were passed. Defendant appealed.
Error assigned, among others, was the charge of the court.
Affirmed.
W Horace Hepburn, Jr., for appellant.
Oscar Brown, Assistant District Attorney, and with him Ephraim Lipschutz, Assistant District Attorney, and Charles F. Kelley, District Attorney, for appellee.
Before Trexler, P. J., Keller, Cunningham, Baldrige, Stadtfeld, Parker and James, JJ.
The defendant was found guilty of assault and battery with intent to rape.
In this appeal he contends that, accepting the evidence of the Commonwealth to be true, it was insufficient to establish any intent other than to persuade Mrs. Colan to have sexual intercourse with him. Our views are not in accord with that argument. The testimony upon the part of the Commonwealth was that Mrs. Colan was employed as a waitress in the defendant's restaurant. She was in the dining room between 4 and 5 o'clock in the afternoon of August 3, 1932, and defendant called her into the kitchen, which required her to go through an archway of about 6 feet connecting the two rooms; that when she entered the kitchen, the defendant, whose back was towards her, turned, and she then saw that his personal parts were exposed. She immediately started to run back to the dining room, but he grabbed her before she was able to escape, pulled up her uniform, and attempted to have sexual relations with her. She screamed and hurried to the dining room where her street dress was hanging, took it and ran out of the room, and never returned, not even to receive the three days' wages that were due her. There was no other person in the kitchen except the defendant, and the only one in the front room was Pappas, a cook employed by the defendant, who told Mrs. Colan, when she came into the dining room and complained of her treatment, that she was foolish, that if she wanted to remain there she should go upstairs with the defendant and then she would have a steady job. The next day Mrs. Colan went to the Central Station to have defendant arrested.
This evidence, if believed by the jury, established the defendant's guilt. All the essential elements of the crime charged are present. The trial judge was careful in his charge to instruct the jury definitely that if it was the defendant's intent simply to detain Mrs. Colan for the purpose of securing her consent to have intercourse with him, he would be guilty merely of assault and battery, and that before finding him guilty of rape, they must find there was an intent to have intercourse with her forcibly and...
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