September 24, 2008 in City

Teacher’s aide convicted in teen rape case

Basketball coach fathered minor’s child

• Print
• Email
• Share

A former Spokane middle school teacher’s aide who fathered a child with a teenage girl faces about a year in prison after a jury convicted him Tuesday of third-degree rape of a child.

Police arrested Titus V. Epefanio, 31, in September 2006 in connection with a relationship he had with a former Shadle Park High School student after a lawyer representing the teen in the ex-couple’s child custody dispute contacted police.

Epefanio had also faced a charge of first-degree sexual misconduct with a minor, but a judge dismissed it because of lack of evidence.

It took a jury of 12 about four hours to unanimously convict Epefanio. His family cried out when the verdict was read in Spokane Superior Court, and extra security separated them from jurors, who were escorted out a back entrance.

Spokane County Deputy Prosecutor John Love commended the verdict.

“The facts are decided by the jury, and they decided he did it,” Love said.

Epefanio’s defense lawyer, Dave Hearrean, vowed to appeal.

“It’s a very unfortunate thing when a jury will convict on he said, she said evidence alone,” he said.

The verdict came after a four-day trial that saw about 15 people take the stand, including Epefanio and the victim, who’s now older than 18. At issue was whether Epefanio started a sexual relationship when the girl was 15 – the legal age of consent in Washington is 16 – or waited until she turned 16 as he claims. The girl was 16 when she got pregnant.

The first-degree sexual misconduct charge stemmed from the fact that the girl apparently helped Epefanio coach a youth basketball team on her own time, which prosecutors argued met the part of the sexual misconduct law that applies to adults who have sex with minors while in a supervisory relationship.

Because Epefanio was not a teacher at the girl’s school, the charge didn’t stick, Love said.

Epefanio’s relationship with the girl became public in May 2005 when a birth announcement listed him as the father of the girl’s child; the girl’s lawyer was the first to alert police more than a year later.

The girl and her family settled a claim with Spokane Public Schools this summer for an undisclosed amount of money.

Hearrean said the case is a clear example of one side of a nasty child custody dispute seeking revenge through other legal means.

“Sometimes law enforcement bites on it, sometimes they don’t. In this case, law enforcement supported her 100 percent,” he said. “I just think there should be forgiveness and hope for the future instead of the revenge.”

Court papers show the girl became increasingly uncomfortable with Epefanio’s protectiveness of her when she filed for a restraining order against him in April 2005, which a judge issued the next month.

The two met in fall 2001 while she was a seventh-grader at Salk Middle School, where she and two other girls worked as managers for a school basketball team Epefanio coached, according to previously published reports. She returned to manage the team while a student at Shadle Park, at Epefanio’s urging, according to court papers. The girl said the two began having sex when she was 15, and the prosecution showed jurors a scrapbook with photos of the girl and Epefanio kissing.

Hearrean said he’ll base his appeal on a number of things, including his claim that the prosecution removed photos from the scrapbook that showed the girl was pregnant – and thus older than 16 – when they were taken.

Love said the girl lives in Spokane and has been doing her best to move on.

“She’s had to continue to do what everybody else does, which is continue to live her life,” he said.

Along with the rape conviction, jurors unanimously found one aggravating factor in the case, that the abuse took place over a long period of time. He will be sentenced in early November.

Epefanio, a percussionist with the Spokane hardcore band The Wire Hanger, had been out on bail since his arrest and was taken into custody after the verdict.

Meghann M. Cuniff can be reached at (509) 459-5534 or at meghannc@spokesman.com.

No comments on this story so far. Add yours!