On the final day of testimony in the case against a former Spokane Police sergeant accused of raping a subordinate officer, the prosecutor describes a man so determined to have sex that "sober, not sober, if it's in front of you, you'll take it."
"That's not what I said," former Sgt. Gordon Ennis responds in court Tuesday.
"That's what you did, isn't it?" Spokane Prosecutor Kelly Fitzgerald says.
"That's what happened," he says.
It's the first time Ennis, a married father of two, has publicly given specific details of the alleged rape following a drunken house party in October 2015. He describes a night of drinking and hot tubbing, where he kissed another woman, who is not the victim. Ennis also describes the flattery he felt at getting attention from the much younger, female victim.
"I'm a 45-year-old guy, she's a 25-year-old girl," he says. "She was showing me a lot of attention. I kinda liked it."
Throughout nearly two hours of testimony, Ennis recounts in detail the minutes leading up to the alleged assault.
About 30 minutes before the incident, Ennis received a text message from his wife. It was 2:02 am, and she wanted to know if he needed a ride home.
Ennis responded that he didn't, and that he would be home "in a sec," he says in court.
Instead, Ennis describes a scene in which he and the victim are alone on a bed where she pulls down her sweatpants and guides his hand "back between her legs."
Ennis then tells the jury in detail about his further sexual contact with the victim, but is cut off by an objection from the prosecutor when his defense attorney asks if any of it was nonconsensual.
Ennis does, however, go on to say that the victim was awake, that they both were intoxicated and that they had been talking with each other.
The victim, who is still employed as an officer in Spokane, testified last week that her memory of the late evening and early morning hours that night in October 2015 is almost nonexistent, the
Spokesman-Review reports. In court, she has testified that she only recalls "screen shots," until around 3 am when she awoke with Ennis' hand in her pants.
Tuesday, Fitzgerald suggests in her questioning of Ennis that he stayed late at the party because "you wanted to make sure that you were going to end your evening having a shot at" the victim, and "having sexual contact with her."
"No, I stayed because I liked the contact," Ennis responds. "I was appreciating it."
Fitzgerald continues, asking whether Ennis was aware that the victim was so intoxicated that she previously had thrown up and needed help getting dressed into clean clothes.
"I knew she'd gotten sick, I knew she was a grown woman, and I knew she was intoxicated," Ennis responds.
Fitzgerald also highlights Ennis' relationship with the victim, who at the time of the alleged assault was a probationary officer with SPD. Although the victim did not work directly for Ennis, she was his subordinate.
The trial continues Wednesday with closing arguments. Then the case will go to the jury for a decision.