Efrem Johnson insists he didn’t commit the rape that landed him a 28-year prison sentence on Wednesday.
Johnson, 57, told Summit County Judge Paul Gallagher there was no evidence to connect him to the 2000 crime.
But prosecutors said at the trial that Johnson’s DNA matched the rapist’s DNA, which was tested in 2014 as part of Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine’s effort to test old rape kits. Johnson never acknowledged the matching DNA during his chance to speak at his sentencing hearing.
Johnson’s case was the first in Summit County to result from the testing. According to prosecutors, there’s a 1 in 156 quadrillion chance that the DNA didn’t belong to Johnson.
Johnson, who’s already serving a life sentence for a 2010 murder, was given a chance on Wednesday to convince the judge to give him a smaller sentence.
Rather than ask for a smaller sentence, he told the judge he didn’t rape anyone and insisted his trial was unfair and violated his constitutional rights.
“You can bring all that up on appeal,” Gallagher said.
Johnson received the maximum sentence of 28 years on the charges of rape, felonious assault and kidnapping.
According to prosecutors, Johnson lured the victim — who was 38 at the time and is now 54 — into a wooded area in Akron’s Lane-Wooster neighborhood on the promise that he’d sell her crack cocaine. She accused him of beating and raping her there.
Johnson plans to appeal the case to the Ninth District Court of Appeals.
Nick Glunt can be reached at 330-996-3565 or nglunt@thebeaconjournal.com.