Man Pleads Innocent To Rape At Party

A man who is accused of second-degree rape stemming from a drunken strip poker party pleaded innocent Thursday in Pend Oreille County Superior Court and was scheduled for trial in January.

Sheriff’s investigators said Kenneth J. Lawrence, 19, of Cocolalla, Idaho, raped a 19-year-old woman after an Oct. 12 poker game left both of them and a second man naked. The game was at a cabin on Camden Road, near Elk, Wash., that is owned by Lawrence’s parents.

The woman appears to have diminished mental capacity, officers said.

Deputy Prosecutor Tony Koures said in a court document that witnesses said the rape occurred when the woman tried to break up a fight between the two naked men. She said Lawrence knocked the other man down, hit her and assaulted her.

Witnesses, who were outside the cabin at the time, told officers they heard the woman yelling, went inside and found Lawrence raping her.

The second man had been knocked to the floor, witnesses said.

Almost everyone at the cabin had been drinking, Koures said.

, DataTimes