BOISE, Idaho (AP) An attorney accused of assaulting a woman at his Nampa law office is facing trial this week on a charge of battery with intent to commit a felony.Prosecutors claim John Prior, 50, of Meridian, tried to have sex with a woman who rebuffed his advances during a May 31, 2011, incident. During a trial that started Tuesday, Prior's attorney countered that Prior and the woman engaged in consensual sexual activity, and that the woman's story has changed at times.
The trial continued with testimony Wednesday and Thursday.
The alleged victim, a 20-year-old woman, told jurors that Prior offered her money, employment and assistance in a legal case if she would have sex with him. She testified that when she spurned Prior's advances, he attempted to force himself on her.
A grand jury indicted Prior earlier this year and since he practices as a Canyon County defense attorney, the Idaho Attorney General's Office is prosecuting the case.
Deputy attorney general Jessica Smith opened her arguments by telling jurors the woman who had come to Prior's office to talk to him about a job and to discuss a child custody case. "He had something else in mind, and that was sex," Smith told the court.
Prior took the woman into a conference room and then left to retrieve paperwork but instead returned with a condom, the prosecutor said. Prior then took off the woman's clothes, forced himself on top of her and attempted to rape her, Smith said.
The prosecutor told jurors she would present DNA evidence to show Prior unlawfully touched the woman.
Defense attorney Scott Fouser told a very different version of incident, saying the woman was in dire financial straits and agreed to have sex with Prior for money, but then lied about it to her family, her boyfriend, and to police. Fouser promised to show jurors video surveillance from the law office and evidence of a $200 bank deposit made by the woman.
She denied that she had agreed to such an offer while being questioning by Fouser, saying she deposited an unemployment check and money given to her by her father. The woman told jurors she didn't resist or scream because she was too afraid and went to police later that day at the urging of her cousin and her boyfriend's mother.
"I wasn't going to say anything," she said. "Because I was scared of him. Because I didn't think anyone would believe me."
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