SAN ANTONIO – After deliberating for about five hours Wednesday, a jury delivered guilty verdicts in the trial of accused Medical Center rapist Anton Harris.
Harris is on trial for the rape and robbery of a nurse in her Medical Center apartment on May 28, 2017.
The sentencing phase of the trial will get underway Thursday. Harris faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.
It’s the first of five rape cases against Harris to go to trial.
Now 21 years old, police say Harris was only 16 when the first sexual assault case was reported in 2016. Harris was arrested in 2017.
Watch the backstory of the case below.
During closing arguments, prosecutors played police body camera video that was recorded by officers responding to the rape call.
The victim, who was identified during the trial as “Jane” to protect her identity, told officers that a young thin black man wearing a grey hoodie forced his way into her apartment and raped her.
She said that afterward he fled with her iPad and iPhone.
“This trial has laid out what was Jane’s worst nightmare come true,” prosecutor Daryl Harris told the jury.
“With a gun pointed to her head, he said, ‘Shut up or I’ll kill you. Shut up or I’ll kill you,’ over and over,” prosecutor Alaina Altis said the woman’s attacker told her.
Attorneys for Harris argued that the state did not produce a single witness who could identify their client as the rapist.
“People jump to conclusions because it’s a young black kid and he lived in the neighborhood and he was walking around in a hoodie – must’ve been him,” defense attorney Monica Guerrero argued.
“None of these sergeants, none of these detectives, none of these reporting officers could ever tell you it was him,” said defense attorney Jonathon Watkins. “And, unfortunately, the state’s key witness, Jane, couldn’t tell you it was him.”
But, according to prosecutors, DNA evidence pointed to Harris.
“You can rely on the DNA in this case that Anton Harris was, in fact, the individual that raped Jane,” said Altis.