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YOUNGSTOWN -- A Warren County man has been convicted of raping and kidnaping a 13-year-old girl in 2019.
A jury deliberated for just over 90 minutes on Wednesday before returning a verdict to Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge Maureen Sweeney. They found Shakrat Abshukurov, 44, of Maineville, Ohio, guilty on two counts of rape, one count of kidnaping, two counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor and two counts of gross sexual imposition, as well as three additional specifications indicating that the victim was 13 years old and that Abshukurov was at least 10 years older.
"We're just thrilled that justice was done," said Mahoning County Assistant Prosecutor Dan Yozwiak after the verdict.
The jury was empaneled Monday and the victim, now 20, testified on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the state called Ohio State Highway Patrol Sgt. Mike Royko, who led the team that arrested Abshukurov in 2022, following a nearly three-year investigation. Much of Royko's time on the witness stand included the prosecution showing jurors a video of the interrogation that took place when they found and arrested Abshukurov at a Warren County government building.
The video showed that the interrogation had to be conducted with a translator looped in by phone because Abshukurov is a native of Uzbekistan and speaks little English.
Defense Attorney Mark Lavelle took issue with the fact that the translator spoke Russian, not Uzbek, but prosecutors Yozwiak and Kyle Hilles noted that Abshukurov never complained during the interview that he could not understand the police investigators and that he voluntarily signed a document waiving his right to have an attorney present during the interview.
During the interrogation, Royko informed Abshukurov that police had phone records that placed him at the scene on that date at that time, that the girl had decisively identified him in a photo lineup, that there were photos of the girl mostly naked, including one with Abshukorov's arm around her, found on his phone, and that DNA evidence found on her body immediately after the rape was matched to Abshukurov.
The girl testified on Tuesday that she was in a state of extreme emotional trauma that night, having run away from home after a major fight with her parents. She was sitting with her legs dangling over a bridge near the exit where Abshukorov, a truck driver, was leaving the highway.
In what Lavelle called a classic case of he-said-she-said, the girl knocked on Abshukorov's truck door after he hollered at her to get out of the road because it was dark and raining.
The girl said she told him she needed help and wanted him to take her to a hospital. Abshukurov said he told her he could not drive her where she wanted to go because it was a no-truck zone. Prosecutors said he was able to communicate clearly with her using a translation device.
The girl testified that after she refused to let him call the police -- because of her fear that the fight with her parents meant she was in trouble -- he forced her into the cabin space of his truck, forcibly removed her clothes and forced her to have sex.
The girl and Abshukorov agreed that he handed her $40 afterward, for her to get an Uber. He testified that he believed she was a prostitute. He alleged that she removed her own clothes and directed him to sit next to her and initiated the sexual activity. He also denied knowing that she was 13. The girl testified that she told him her age and gave him no reason to think she wanted to have sex with him and repeatedly told him to stop.
Hilles and Yozwiak told the jury they had all the evidence they needed to know Abshukurov's version of events was not truthful.
"Look at (the girl's) emotion. The emotion that she has walking into the truck stop. The emotion that she has speaking to the officers right after this. And the emotion that she has sitting on the stand. Does that look like someone that agreed to consensual sex with some random man that she had never met before? No," Hilles said.
He then described what police encountered when they answered the call placed by a clerk at the truck stop.
"The police asked her what happened that night. Not what happened in the truck. She was emotional. Hyperventilating," he said. "And I encourage you to watch that video of (the girl) going into the truck stop. Really watch it. Look at those photos that were given to you. ...That does not look like a consenting child. Throughout the pictures and video, she is in distress."
Abshukurov has been in the country since 2014 but it is unclear if he is a naturalized citizen. If not, he conceivably could be subject to deportation after his incarceration, should he ever be released. Prosecutors did not respond Wednesday afternoon to a query about Abshukurov's potential sentence.