A former hotel security guard charged with raping a guest in her room on her wedding night in January was acquitted Thursday by a 3rd District Court jury.
The five-woman, three-man jury acquitted Derrick Brewer, 26, of rape and burglary charges, deliberating 11/2 hours on the third day of the trial.The Salt Lake woman who reported the Jan. 22 incident told the jury Tuesday how her wedding night devolved into a night of drinking, drugs and fighting with her new husband and finally ended with her being raped while still wearing her wedding dress.
But defense witnesses told a different story, one of the woman telling the Little America hotel employees that evicted the groom from their room how attractive they are and inviting them to visit her when they got off work.
One man testified the woman grabbed his buttocks and hung onto his arm while he waited with her as the hotel manager and Brewer asked her husband to leave.
A friend of the woman, who was her maid of honor at the wedding, testified the woman called her at home about an hour after the incident to tell her about it and said she was reluctant to report it to police because the guard was "kind of cute."
Prosecutor Jim Cope and defense attorney Paul Quinlan agreed that Brewer and the woman had sex but disagreed on whether she consented.
The woman said she was asleep when Brewer came into her room around 6 a.m. and shook her awake. She was frightened, she said, because she knew he was a security guard for the hotel.
After talking to her for awhile, the woman testified, Brewer took off her underwear and raped her. She told the jury she didn't tell Brewer to stop or physically try to stop him, deciding it was better not to resist.
Brewer did not testify, but Quin-lan told the jury in his closing statement that Brewer had legitimate business in her room. He needed to talk to the woman to get information for an incident report, and the hotel had received a phone call from her family that the woman may be suicidal, Quinlan said.
And, Quinlan admitted, Brewer thought there might be the possibility of sex with the woman.
Under questioning, Brewer told police investigating the incident that he first knocked on the woman's door but got no answer. Brewer and the manager had checked on the woman earlier, using pass keys to enter her room when she didn't answer the door.
He found her asleep, Brewer told police, and shook her awake to talk to her. The woman first went to the bathroom, then came out and began undressing, he told police, which led to them having sex.
Cope admitted the woman's testimony was hazy, noting her use of alcohol and drugs that night. Although she may have "holes in her head," Cope told the jury at one point, she recounted the story as she recalls it.
Brewer's action was "boneheaded, stupid, a mistake, immoral and dumb," Quinn told the jury and will haunt him for the rest of his life. Brewer was fired from his hotel security job the same day, and his hoped-for career in law enforcement will never happen, Quinlan told the jury.
Quinlan said after the verdict that Brewer is"incredibly happy. It's a huge victory for Derrick, to clear him. But his life is still ruined. The stigma of being falsely accused of being a rapist will follow him all his life."