Paden man found guilty of rape

Paden man found guilty of rape

By Ken Childers

ONL Editor

A man accused of raping a Paden woman in 2019 was found guilty last week in a bench trial at the Okfuskee County Courthouse.

Jermella Bacy, 32, was arrested in February 2019 after a woman went to the Prague Police Department and reported that she had been sexually assaulted at her residence in Paden. Bacy was scheduled to stand trial in November, but at the last minute he waived his right to a jury trial and stood before District Judge Lawrence Parish for a bench trial that began June 30.

Parish rendered a guilty verdict on felony charges of first-degree rape (by instrumentation), forcible sodomy and burglary in the first degree. Bacy will be sentenced in September.

According to an affidavit, the victim told investigators she was asleep with her eight-year-old daughter when she was awakened by a man, later identified as Bacy, who had his hand over her mouth. She said she saw him leaning over her daughter and that he had grabbed her by the hair and said, “Youʼre coming with me.”

The woman also said Bacy led her at knifepoint to the bathroom, where she was forced to perform various non-consensual sexual acts with him. Bacy also threatened to kill her and her children if she “tried a stunt,” the victim told investigators.

A couple of days later, Derek White and Curt Titsworth, agents with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI), traveled to Paden to arrest Bacy on outstanding felony arrest warrants out of Comanche County. The warrants included failure to appear on charges of possession of a controlled dangerous substance and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. Bacy waived his rights upon arrest and agreed to speak with the agents.

Bacy initially denied having any contact with the victim, but eventually recanted the statement, according to Whiteʼs report. Bacy said he was in the backyard of his residence on the day of the reported incident when his accuser gave him hand signals, telling him to come to her house at 4 a.m.

Bacy told the agents he walked to the victim’s house at that time, where she was waiting at the front door for him, wearing a black spaghetti strap shirt. From there, Bacy said she led him into the bathroom where they each consensually carried out various sexual acts.

Following the OSBI interview, Bacy was arrested and transported to the Okfuskee County Jail for booking. After waiving his right to a trial by his peers, a bench trial was scheduled for Dec. 19, but the date was reset multiple times; first to Feb. 25, then to March 26, then to May 21 and finally to June 30.