SALINE CO.—One of the juries we were sitting on last night came through at about the time we turned in: 9 p.m., and with a verdict of guilty in one of the cases against Raymond Moss.
Raymond Moss
Moss, 47, of Harrisburg, was charged in this particular instance with two counts of Criminal Sexual Assault by use of force, two counts of Domestic Battery, and two counts of Unlawful Restraint. His three-day trial ended in guilty verdicts in the first four counts, but not in the last two; the prosecution was unable to convince the jury that Moss had restrained his two victims in the sex assault case…one of them his long-time girlfriend and babymomma.
According to the prosecution, who presented the incidents in graphic detail, both women suffered significant injury to their private areas due to Moss’ attack on them. The latter two charges were that he restrained them against their will, in at least one instance by locking one up in a small room, but apparently there just wasn’t enough evidence to support that.
These incidents dated back to 2009 in one case; 2010 in the other. Moss finally was caught with his pants down, so to speak, when in October 2010 he was arrested after a girl reported he had raped her. When investigators began digging in to her story, they came across the other cases, and Saline County Assistant Prosecutor Eva Walker pursued charges in all of them. The October ’10 case has yet to make it through the system, and hasn’t been set for a jury trial yet; Moss, who fancies himself a jailhouse lawyer, has been aggravating the court system with his pro se filings until recently, when attorney Fred Turner took over the defense in the case and kind of put a stop to it.
Moss continues to dig himself into the hole deeper and deeper; during the course of this trial, it was revealed that he called a witness in the case to come to the Saline County Detention Center where Moss has been held on a $1.1 million bail. He then, in a visit that he HAD to have known was being recorded, asked her to set up a girl in Carrier Mills for drugs, claiming he had a police officer “friend” ready to arrest her. All of this was allegedly designed on his part to tamper with witnesses in the case, and all of it was played in court….which didn’t help him one scintilla.
Moss attempted to call us during production week of this last paper. He does that periodically; has been told to stop; but he keeps it up. He always pleads his case, claiming he’s innocent and people are setting him up, and if we’ll just hear him out, we’d find out just how corrupt Saline County is. We told him last summer that he needs to choke up the evidence next time instead of pussyfoot around about it, dropping hints and not coming off ANYTHING useful. He never has. So we hang up as soon as we hear his voice, because we can’t abide by rapists.
Moss is eligible for 15 years on each of the sexual assault convictions, and six years on the domestic batteries. Prosecutor Mike Henshaw has confirmed that Moss will have to serve 85 percent of whatever sentence he gets on the sex assaults. We anticipate lots of legal gyrations out of Moss before gets to that point. If this occurs, we’ll let you know, either here or in the print version; so be sure to check it out!!