The trial of Caleb Womack, the fourth man to be tried in connection with a 2012 rape of a former University of Massachusetts student, will begin Monday in Hampshire Superior Court.
Three men – Emmanuel Bile, Justin King and Adam Liccardi, all of Pittsfield – have already been convicted of raping a UMass student in her Pierpont Hall dorm room and are currently serving state prison sentences.
Womack, a native of Enfield, Connecticut, has denied ever having sex with the woman. The three previous men all admitted to having sex with the woman, but claimed it was consensual.
His trial was originally scheduled to begin Nov. 16, but was delayed after his lawyer, Jonah Goldsmith, requested that Womack’s competency to stand trial be evaluated.
After a psychologist affiliated with the Court told Judge Bertha D. Josephson, who is presiding over the case, that Womack was clinically depressed, unable to feel emotions and incapable of communicating with his lawyer, Womack was sent to Worcester State Hospital for a second opinion.
The hospital’s evaluation report deemed Womack competent to stand trial and Josephson set the date for jury selection to begin Monday.
Josephson also declared that a series of text messages between Womack and the other defendants, in which they responded to the victim’s request for money to not report the incident to the police, would be let in as part of the trial.
The four men, who were not UMass students, visited UMass in October 2012 and arrived at the woman’s dorm room despite her requests to stay away. Later that night, the four men later continuously raped the woman as she lost and regained consciousness due to drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana throughout the night, according to her testimony from previous trials.
Stuart Foster can be reached at [email protected] or followed on Twitter @Stuart_C_Foster.