D.C. Man Found Guilty of Raping Another Convicted Sex Offender

Paroled sex offender Lafayette Bailey seemed on the right track. After 21 years in prison, he had a job as a paralegal, and he appeared to be dealing with his anger.

But everything began unraveling last winter, and Bailey soon was behind bars again -- charged with sexually assaulting another recently released sex offender, whom he met in the anger management class that they were required to attend.

With no witnesses but themselves, what happened between the two men Jan. 6, 2005, in Bailey's Northeast Washington home may forever remain a matter of dispute.

But yesterday, after a trial and two days of deliberations, a D.C. Superior Court jury spoke, convicting Bailey, 41, of several charges, including two counts of first-degree sexual abuse.

Bailey, prosecutors charged, tricked his 22-year-old classmate into going to Bailey's home by falsely claiming that he was a court investigator and was in a position to have the younger man sent back to prison if he did not comply with Bailey's directives.

Frightened, the younger man went to the home near Florida Avenue and Sixth Street NE, according to the account in charging documents. There, Bailey showed him an official-looking dossier, apparently based in part on public records at the courthouse. The packet also contained personal information about the man, newspaper clippings and a D.C. police photograph of the man.

Bailey invented a story that under a law on sex offenders, the man could be prosecuted again for the sexual assault of a teenager, even though he already was on probation for that crime, authorities said. Bailey wanted to know what the man was willing to do to stay out of trouble, they alleged.

When the man suggested money, Bailey wanted something else.

"I'm gonna degrade you," Bailey told the man, according to charging documents in the case.

According to authorities, Bailey displayed the handle of a small pistol, and the threat of violence helped set up the rape that followed. The jurors found that the man was indeed raped, but they did not conclude that Bailey had a gun, acquitting him of armed sexual abuse and weapons offenses.

Rather, the jury apparently determined that Bailey was convincing in his threats to have the man prosecuted again or to have his probation revoked. Other evidence suggested that Bailey had gone to great lengths to strike fear in the 22-year-old and in another man Bailey was convicted of trying to sexually assault.

To support the claim that he was an investigator, Bailey forged letters using the letterhead of a foundation that donated money to the legal services organization where Bailey was working.

Using details culled from his targets' criminal records, Bailey fabricated letters to himself in which he was asked to investigate the men and was given significant discretion in determining what should happen to them.

If "your professional opinion determines that we should not seek further prosecution . . . for his actions against the victim and that justice can no longer be served by insisting that [he] live the rest of his life in a federal penitentiary, please advise us of this determination and we will promptly notify the Department of Justice to close this case," Bailey wrote in the letter about the man he was convicted of sexually assaulting.

Bailey's attorneys attacked the credibility of the alleged victims and said there were inconsistencies in their accounts.

Judge Rhonda Reid Winston is scheduled to sentence Bailey on May 16.