YOUNGSTOWN — Prosecutors said Tuesday the rape trial of Franklin C. Herns of Sunshine Avenue is a case of “no means no,” and Herns would not accept no for an answer June 26, 2021, when he forced a woman he knew to have sex with him multiple times over four hours.

Assistant Prosecutor Caitlyn Andrews told jurors in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court that Herns, 29, tortured the woman, 29, with whom he previously had a relationship. He is charged with two counts of rape.

But Herns’ defense team said the episode was more about the woman experiencing “regret” for having sex with Herns and “having to explain” to the father of her children when she returned home why she was gone so long.

The alleged victim was the first witness in the trial, which is being heard by Judge Anthony Donofrio. The woman said she and Herns went to school together in Youngstown, attended Youngstown State University at the same time and “kind of saw each other” in 2017, when they had sex several times. The relationship ended amicably.

In 2021, they started to communicate on Facebook Messenger. Much of the woman’s testimony was based on printouts of the messages they exchanged in May and June of 2021 on Facebook, including the day of the alleged offenses.

The messages made it clear that Herns was interested in having sex with the woman. The woman’s responses were focused on her desire to find a new type of relationship — one that would lead to a family life with a committed partner.

Under questioning by Andrews, the woman said she found Herns’ messages at times “confusing” because one minute he was urging her to be intimate with him without attachment , “then the next he is ready for a relationship, then the next point he doesn’t have time for it. So it was just confusing.”

TESTIFIES ABOUT RAPES

On the day of the alleged rapes, the two exchanges messages, including one in which Herns said, “I need someone to talk to” and “I’m coming over.”

She told him no, that the father of her kids was there, and she was getting the house ready for a birthday party for one of her three children.

Herns showed up at her home anyway, but she did not leave with him the first time. But when he came back a little later, she opened the house door before he got to the door and got in his car. She was still in a nightgown.

When Andrews asked whether she intended to have sex with him, she said no.

She said she had never been afraid of him. “I thought he was content with me saying no over and over again.”

She said she thought they would just “ride around and talk what he wanted to talk about.” She thought it would take only five minutes. He stopped at a store and bought two bottles of inexpensive wine and drove her to his house.

They went inside the house, which she said was in “deplorable” condition, and he said they were going upstairs. She said she hoped it would smell better there and was afraid of his dog. But when they got upstairs, she said he raped her the first time, realizing he was too powerful for her to stop.

She told him she wanted to leave, but he would not let her. She started to yell, but he covered her mouth and threatened her. “I didn’t think I was going to get out of there.” She added, “I just knew I was about to die. I just kept thinking about my kids.” She said he “kept strangling me.” He raped her five more times over a period of close to four hours, she said.

He later drove her home.

Under cross examination by defense attorney Nick Cerni, the woman was asked about telling Herns in a Facebook message “I wish I could” when Herns asked for sex from her.

She explained she meant: “I wish I could, but you want one thing. I want something else, so I can’t do that even if I wanted to.” When asked if that might sound like an invitation for sex, she said she does not know, “But I thought I made it very clear that if we were not going to have a relationship; there is not going to be any sexual contact.”

When Cerni asked why she didn’t call police when Herns came to her house, she said didn’t want to because she had just called the police on another man a few days earlier.

Cerni also asked her why she told a Youngstown police officer later that she had been at her mother’s house when Herns picked her up; she said she lied about that because she feared she would lose the house she had because the man who lived with her was not allowed to be there, according to the rules of a domestic violence program that provided the home.

When Cerni asked why she was spotted parked in front of Herns’ home on multiple occasions after the alleged rapes, the woman said “I couldn’t believe … that I almost died in that house.” She said she would call the help hotline “just to vent, break down sometimes. I would look at that house and say I can’t believe it.”

The trial resumes this morning.

erunyan@vindy.com