ROBERT ABNER FOUND GUILTY ON ALL COUNTS

Abner found guilty on all counts

BY TIM POTTER
The Wichita Eagle
Photo from http://www.kansas.com/
Jaime Oppenheimer

The Wichita Eagle

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Right: Robert Abner is taken out of the courtroom after he was found guilty on all 10 counts for robbing, kidnapping and sexually assaulting Joyce Patterson last summer.
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Joyce Patterson and Larry Patterson held a press conference after a jury found Robert Abner guilty on all 10 counts for robbing, kidnapping and sexually assaulting Patterson last summer. Joyce chose not to speak at the conference.

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WICHITA - "She was on a mission."

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Larry Patterson was telling reporters how his 49-year-old wife, Joyce, responded since being robbed, kidnapped and sexually assaulted last summer while working as a Viola (Vi-OH'-lah)convenience store clerk.

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Joyce Patterson declined to speak Monday after a jury found Robert Abner guilty of all 10 charges against him. Her husband spoke at a brief news conference after the jury announced its verdict -- following about one hour of deliberation.

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Asked what he meant by "on a mission," Larry Patterson said that during his wife's abduction, "She promised herself if she got out of that, she was going to make sure he paid for what he had done."

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In great detail, she told detectives and a sexual assault nurse/examiner what her abductor had done to her. Then last week, she testified in open court for more than three hours.

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"Joyce has been strong as she could be through this," Larry Patterson said. She was the victim. But in some ways, she was on trial.

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In closing arguments Monday, one of Abner's defense lawyers, Deputy Public Defender Jama Mitchell, accused Joyce Patterson of not being a credible or consistent witness.

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Mitchell conceded that Abner had robbed Patterson, but said Patterson consented to sex and made no effort to leave Abner's rental home during four days there.

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Mitchell said Patterson had an unhappy home life and that Abner catered to her by bringing her food, drinks and cigarettes and rubbing lotion on her feet.

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Marc Bennett, the prosecutor, dismissed that contention as ridiculous, saying that Abner's home was no spa.

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The Pattersons, who have been married 27 years, sat together in the courtroom Monday holding hands. Bennett defended the Pattersons' marriage in court, saying that of the hundreds of people investigators talked to, no one said the marriage was unhappy.

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Larry Patterson said after the verdict that he understood that the public defenders have "a job to do, just like the District Attorney's Office does."

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To get guilty verdicts on every count was "phenomenal," he said. He thanked the prosecutors, the investigators who had worked on the case and women from the Wichita Area Sexual Assault Center who supported the couple.

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The jury found Abner guilty of one count of aggravated robbery, one count of aggravated kidnapping, two counts of aggravated criminal sodomy and six counts of rape. Now that Abner has been convicted, District Judge David Kaufman said he was replacing Abner's $500,000 bond with no bond, saying he considered Abner a "flight risk and danger to the community."

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Abner, 40, is set for sentencing July 10. Mitchell said her client could face 40 years in prison.
Months before the robbery, Abner had stopped at the store in Viola, in southwestern Sedgwick County, while working in the area as a carpenter, according to testimony.

Earlier Monday, in closing arguments, Bennett asked the jurors to remember: "There is a difference between submission and consent."

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According to Bennett:

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Joyce Patterson's ordeal began June 23 when Abner came into the store wearing a disguise and held what she thought was a handgun. He grabbed her by the hand and forced her out of the store. He told her to run to his car and not to look at him. He made her get down on the floor of his car.

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The defense argument that she simply went with him didn't make sense, Bennett said. Abner took her to his house in north Wichita, where he sodomized her and raped her -- six times over a couple of days, Bennett said.

A gynecological exam showed injury, but the defense team had countered that the injury was limited to a small abrasion. If she was consenting, Bennett asked, "Why does he have to hogtie her?"

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Although investigators would later recover a BB handgun from Abner's car after police arrested him in Oregon, the gun Patterson saw during the robbery looked dangerous to her, Bennett said. She "believes it's a gun, and she complies." "What choice does she have?"

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After keeping Patterson bound at times and blindfolded off and on over four days, Abner was moved by seeing her family plead on television for her safe return, and he dropped her off outside her pastor's home, according to testimony.

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In her closing argument defending Abner, Mitchell said the evidence showed that Patterson followed Abner to the car and that he couldn't understand why Patterson didn't go into the store bathroom, as he ordered, so he could make a "clean getaway."

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Once at his house, she never tried to leave or seek help, or thought about it, even though she had windows and doors to escape by and had access to a weapon nearby -- scissors on a night stand, Mitchell argued.

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After Abner dropped Patterson off, investigators asked her leading questions to get the answers they wanted, Mitchell said. Mitchell argued that Abner -- described by prosecutors as a menacing 300-pound man at the time of the robbery -- was an "overgrown adolescent" who told Patterson "fantastical stories."

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"Find him guilty for what he did," Mitchell said.

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After the jury found Abner guilty on all 10 counts, Larry Patterson said, "The system does work."

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Sentencing is set for July 10.