Crips gang rape: Attack on young woman highlights Osceola County's gang problem.

[Lucinda F. Boyd]

Three members of the Crips were recently convicted of raping a 19-year-old woman in a rental home in Poinciana as two other men watched.

May 12, 2010|By Henry Pierson Curtis, Orlando Sentinel

KISSIMMEE — Three young men received lengthy prison terms after being convicted of abducting and raping a Poinciana woman — an attack that illustrates the extreme violence of Central Florida's street gangs.

The men belonged to the Crips, one of about 20 street gangs with more than 500 members in Osceola County.

They were sentenced to 20 to 30 years in prison and have been labeled as sexual predators for life for attacking a woman Jan. 18, 2009, after she visited an Orlando nightclub.

The ringleader — Emmanuel "Miami" Mendez, 21, — was awaiting trial for murder at the time the woman was gang-raped in a rental home in Poinciana.

Court records show all five men in the case — the three rapists and two other men who watched while the woman begged and screamed for help — had long criminal histories and belonged to gangs based near the Osceola-Polk County Line.

The victim had passed out after visiting an Orlando nightclub, where she sipped a single drink prosecutors think had been doctored with drugs.

It happened after her friend, David A. Jones III, 18, of Poinciana, picked her up from her job in Orlando in her car. Three young men were in the back.

They drove to Club Destiny near International Drive, records show.

The rear-seat passengers were Mendez, Kevin "Killa" Dennison, 19, both of Poinciana, and Kyle Langhorne, 21, of Haines City.

All four men belonged to the Crips, according to pre-trial depositions, which identified the gang phonetically as "Crypts."

While Jones didn't join the rape, he watched while the victim struggled and screamed his name, records state.

Rather than help his friend, Jones left her in the bedroom with the other Crips and went home, records state.

"He said he did not want to get involved because he was also a Crypts [Crips] member and he knew they were going to — to quote him — 'jump him,' " Detective Luis Garcia told lawyers in a deposition.

The second witness was Michael J. Brown, 24, who belongs to the Folk Nation street gang, records state.

An ex-convict, Brown initially intended to have sex with the victim until he heard her beg, "Please stop. It hurts. Stop. I don't want this," according to court records.

Realizing she was being raped, Brown went back to his own bedroom and shut the door. "I don't want any of this. I'm on probation," he told the detective.

On April 23, the three men were convicted of sexual battery by multiple perpetrators.

Mendez received 30 years in prison. Dennison was sentenced to 25 years. Langhorne received 20 years, records show. Jones and Brown were not charged.

Less than a week later, Mendez was convicted in a separate trial for the shooting death of Hakeem Ahmed Rasheed in July 2007.

Mendez got upset when Rasheed asked him for a smoke and grabbed his wrist.

Mendez snatched a pistol from his waistband and shot Rasheed twice in the chest, records state.

He was charged with second-degree murder and held without bail, records state.

Then, in a rare court decision in August 2008, Mendez was released from the Osceola County Jail without having to post a penny for bail.

The State Attorney's Office agreed to let him out because a prosecutor realized the case was not ready to go trial and Mendez had been held in jail for almost a year, court records show.

A jury April 29 found Mendez guilty of the lesser crime of manslaughter with a firearm. He received 15 years for the killing — a sentence that must served after he finishes serving 30 years for rape, records show.