Jury says two men in gang-rape guilty

Almost two years after they were gang-raped, Wang-Quin Li and Hong- Jin Wang finally received justice when the six-man jury handed a guilty verdict to two of the four men who committed the heinous crime.

Jose O. Rabauliman, 23, and Hadley F. Renguul, 22, were also found guilty of kidnapping, criminal oral copulation and voluntarily acted in concert with one another in committing the crime of rape.

Kidnapping carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Since the crime committed was gang-rape, the two faces a maximum penalty of 20 years, according to Assistant Attorney General James J. Benedetto.

Mr. Benedetto, who represented the two Chinese women, had to look for Ms. Li who had already gone home to Shanghai, China after losing hope that the perpetrators of the crime would still be punished.

But it did not take the prosecution a long time to convince them to testify against Mr. Rabauliman and Mr. Renguul on Dec. 28, 1999. Mr. Benedetto praised the two women for their bravery in facing the men in the court room considering the stigma associated with rape victims.

Ms. Li and Ms. Wang who used to work at Caesar’s Sauna in Garapan as masseuse, testified last month in the Superior Court and positively identified the men who kidnapped and raped them in the early morning of March 28, 1998.

Two other men, Sheldon Yano and Jake Ito, were involved in the kidnap-rape case.

The AGO dropped the case against Mr. Yano because he had to be transferred to the custody of the federal court to face charges in connection with a prison riot held last year. He is now serving a 10-year sentence in a detention center in the U.S. mainland.

The prosecution entered a plea agreement with Mr. Ito, 22, who testified against Mr. Rabauliman and Mr. Renguul. He is now serving a 10-year imprisonment.

Court records show that the two women were walking infront of the Horiguchi building after having a late dinner at J’s Restaurant when they were grabbed by the four men who were on board a van.

Ms. Li and Ms. Wang were brought to Suicide Cliff Look-Out Point in Marpi where the four men took turns in raping them. The two women said they begged and pleaded to let them go but the men did not listen. They screamed for help and fought back as the four men sexually assaulted them.

During the hearing, the defense lawyers claimed there was no rape as the women voluntarily went with the men because they were “prostitutes.”

But Mr. Benedetto said the defense failed to explain how Ms. Li lost one of her shoes which was later on found in front of the Horiguchi Building if she willingly went with the defendants.

Another evidence which the defense found it difficult to debunk was how Ms. Wang’s pants could have been torn on both sides if it were a consensual act, Mr. Benedetto said. The fingerprint bruises found on various parts of the body of the two women bolstered evidence that the two were raped, he added.

Mr. Benedetto expressed his gratitude to Korean national Agustine Chong, who witnessed the incident while walking toward Suicide Cliff and decided to call 911.

“This would have been an entirely different case had Mr. Chong not involved himself in the process and did not report the crime immediately,” he added.

Mr. Benedetto expressed concern on the growing incident of rape cases on the island where there is a large population of nonresident workers who are easy targets because they cannot speak English.

He said the women who are victims of rape are discouraged to report the crime because they are unfamiliar with the system and do not know where to go.