MIDDLETOWN, Conn. (CTNow) — A man pleaded guilty Tuesday to sexually assaulting a woman who is terminally ill with cancer.
Alexander Luong, 23, of Whitewood Road pleaded guilty in Superior Court under the Alford doctrine to a reduced charge of criminal attempt to commit fourth-degree sexual assault and first-degree unlawful restraint. Under the Alford doctrine, the defendant doesn’t admit guilt but agrees there is enough evidence for a conviction.
According to the arrest warrant affidavit, the assault happened Feb. 23 at the Clinton home of the woman, who has stage 4 pancreatic and liver cancer. Luong was among the people who had been helping her.
The woman had been lying in bed in a fetal position when Luong came in, lay with her and rubbed her back, the warrant states. He then lowered his hand to rub her stomach, ignoring her warning that he might pull out a tube, according to her statement to police.
The woman told others that he grabbed her bile tube and wrapped it around his hand so she could not move. When she told him that could kill her, he let go; she later needed emergency surgery because the stitches were ripped out and the area around the tube became infected, the warrant states.
He pushed her shoulder down so that she was lying flat on her back, the woman told police. She said she tried to push him off her, but he was being more forceful, holding her down and trying to pull her pajama bottoms off, the warrant states.
“The victim stated that she felt afraid because she believed that she was too weak to fight him off and was afraid that he was going to rape her,” it states. When Luong was distracted by a barking dog, she rolled out of bed and was able to get to the bathroom.
Luong came in and the woman began to vomit, prosecutor Russell C. Zentner told Judge Susan B. Handy.
“He told her she was faking it,” he said.
Loung, who told her he was not drunk but had had a couple of drinks, grabbed her by the hair, pulled her head back and tried to force her to perform a sex act on him, the warrant states. The woman continued to fight him off, punching him and yelling at him, it states.
Someone came home and Luong stopped, the woman told police.
Under a plea agreement, Luong will be given a five-year, suspended sentence on Sept. 11. The sentence is to be followed by five years of probation.
The woman didn’t want him to go to jail, Zentner said.
