Jurors find Bradford innocent of rape

YAKIMA, Wash. — Ted Bradford won his attempt to clear his name Thursday, when a jury declared him innocent of raping a woman in Yakima’s Barge-Chestnut neighborhood 15 years ago.

After less than five hours of deliberation, jurors found Bradford, 36, not guilty of first-degree rape and burglary in the September 1995 attack.

The verdict meant legal redemption for Bradford, who had already served about nine years in prison. A conviction would have forced him to register as a sex offender.

“We’re obviously thrilled. We believed in Ted’s innocence all along,” said defense attorney Felix Luna of Seattle. Luna handled the case for Innocence Project Northwest, a legal clinic based at the University of Washington.

Project Northwest attorneys said Bradford’s was the first case in the state to win a new trial based solely on new DNA evidence.

Luna suggested that the lack of physical evidence linked to Bradford might have tipped the jury in Bradford’s favor.

Specialists for the state crime lab testified during the second trial that they found DNA from an unknown male on a mask that the victim said was placed over her eyes during the Sept. 25, 1995, attack. They said they also found other DNA evidence from that male or another person on the woman’s clothing and a hanger that was used to tie her hands to the baby’s crib before the assailant escaped.

Neither contributor A or B, as they were called in court, have been identified in national DNA databases.

“We believe that individual B is responsible and needs to answer some serious questions for the police,” Luna said after the verdict was read.

An emotional Bradford hugged his attorney, ex-wife and other supporters. Luna said his client was not prepared to make a statement.

Deputy prosecutors Sam Chen and Patti Powers were disappointed by the verdict. Still, they praised jurors for their hard work on a tough case.

After prosecutors agreed with Innocence Project attorneys to submit the clothing and other items for DNA testing, judges in Yakima County and the state Court of Appeals agreed that the results could have prompted the jury to reach a different decision. Prosecutors opted to seek a new trial.

Chen said he still believes Bradford committed the crime.

“We wanted justice to be done for the victims in this case and to make sure Ted Bradford doesn’t do this again,” Chen said, adding that the woman who was raped had expressed sadness over Thursday’s verdict.

Then 25 years old, she told police she was not able to identify her assailant because he quickly knocked her to the ground as she tried to run away with her newborn baby. The rapist had a nylon covering his face and ordered her to wear a mask during the rape, she said.

However, she identified Bradford as the rapist in court, deputy prosecutor Patty Powers said in her closing argument Thursday morning.

In his closing argument, Luna noted that the victim had told police some time after the rape that she thought she saw the rapist in her neighborhood, wearing the red and blue jacket and “man purse” she remembered from the attack. Luna said the police sketch of the man she described did not match Bradford.

Police began considering Bradford as a possible suspect after he was arrested in April 1996 in connection with lewd conduct in the Barge-Chestnut neighborhood.

Judge David Elofson didn’t allow those convictions to be discussed by prosecutors in the second trial, but he did allow detectives to say police learned Bradford had been in the area.

A neighbor of the victim identified Bradford as the man she had seen driving around the neighborhood several times in the weeks before the rape. She described the car as a white Toyota Tercel, similar to one owned by Bradford.

Bradford, who was employed at the time at Canam Millworks in Moxee, said his wife dropped him off at work and that he was there the day of the rape. But work records and an initial statement by his then-wife indicated that he was not at work on that Friday, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors pointed to Bradford’s tape-recorded confession to police in 1996, which included details that would only be known to the rapist.

Detectives said that they kept questioning him because early on he agreed it was “highly possible” he had committed the crime and that any biological evidence found at the scene could be linked to him.

The defense contended that Bradford was pressured into the confession, which occurred at the end of nearly nine hours of intermittent questioning, and that detectives offered details that influenced his statement.

Luna called an expert witness in police interrogations to testify that Bradford’s interview with police featured many of the attributes of a false confession.

During the second trial, Bradford testified that he repeatedly denied to police that he had attacked the Yakima woman because he knew he didn’t do it.

Regardless of the risk in seeking DNA testing, he told jurors he went ahead with it “because I knew that it would prove my innocence.”

• Mark Morey can be reached at 509-577-7671 or mmorey@yakimaherald.com.