PANAMA CITY — Jurors have found an Ohio ex-convict guilty of violently beating and raping a Lynn Haven woman before threatening to kill her and her child in an attempt to prevent the woman from filing a police report.
The jury’s guilty as charged verdict Wednesday found, though only one rape took place, 27-year-old Corderro Ryan Britten committed rape in two ways: by physical force and threats of retaliation.
As the woman tried to escape from his moving car, Britten held her against her will before he pulled off the road, beat and raped her in the car while wearing a condom. Britten was driving the woman to her Lynn Haven home from a party on the beach on an early morning last September, and he left her on the side of the road miles from home after telling her that if word made it to authorities, he would slit her throat and kill her child.
She ultimately was able to run for help at a nearby residence and report the incident to police.
Britten did not attempt to deny the beating — which left the woman with a dislocated jaw, busted lips and numerous bruises — and said a lack of DNA evidence from the woman’s cavities was a cause for doubt of sexual intercourse.
But prosecutors argued the opened condom wrapper and bloodied sweatshirt found in Britten’s car, along with traces of saliva on the victim’s ear, pieced together the attack.
“That is how (the saliva) got there,” Assistant State Attorney Barbara Beasley told jurors. “He was licking and sucking her ear while he raped her.”
Britten and the woman were introduced before the party in Panama City Beach, where Britten made unwanted sexual advances toward the woman, which she rejected.
“But he wasn’t taking no for an answer,” Beasley said. “He told her, ‘I’ll take you home,’ but instead he drove around looking for a good, dark place.”
When the woman pointed out that Britten had driven past her residence, he told her to shut up and punched her several times in the face. She tried to jump from the moving car, but he grabbed her hair and pulled her back and drove to a residential area near East 14th Street and Transmitter Road.
He pulled to the side of the road, put a condom on and raped her. Britten held her for a time, made her wipe her bloodied face on the sweat shirt and then dropped her off after he threatened the lives of her children and members of her family.
Britten was found guilty as charged of sexual battery by actual physical force, sexual battery by threat of retaliation, false imprisonment and tampering with a victim. Britten will be adjudicated of only one of the rape convictions at sentencing.
Britten was released from an Ohio prison nine months before the attack. He served about 16 months of a two-year sentence for assault, weapons possession and escape, according to the Ohio Department of Corrections website. He had served time for other crimes, including grand theft auto and forgery, according to the Hamilton County Clerk of Courts website.
He faces life in prison when Circuit Judge Michael Overstreet sentences him Nov. 3.