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By CHRIS SCHNEIDMILLER; Times Leader Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 16, 1998 Page: 3A
WILKES-BARRE- A Larksville man was acquitted Tuesday of raping his fiancee
after the woman refused to testify against him at his trial.
The 40-year-old woman, the chief witness against Michael Yanus, invoked her
Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination rather than testify about the
alleged sexual assault.
Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas Judge Mark Ciavarella dismissed all
charges shortly after prosecutor Andrew Bigda closed his case.
“I have made the determination that there has been no evidence submitted
that would allow you to consider the guilt or innocence of the defendant in
this case,” Ciavarella told the jury.
Yanus, 36, and his fiancee, who had said she didn’t want to perjure
herself, hugged after the ruling. The trial lasted less than half an hour. The
couple declined comment afterwards.
“She used the system. She gives the system a black eye to crime victims
everywhere,” said District Attorney Peter Paul Olszewski Jr.. “We’re not going
to tolerate that kind of conduct.”
Olszewski said his office is exploring forms of recourse against the woman.
He declined to elaborate.
Larksville police filed charges of rape, simple assault, indecent assault
and involuntary deviate sexual intercourse against Yanus last year.
The couple was living in the borough with the woman’s two children in
October. She told police he punched her in the face several times on Oct. 18,
knocked out one tooth, then forced her to have intercourse with him, court
records state.
Yanus maintained that the sex was consensual and that he later slapped her
after she struck him in the groin, said defense attorney Joseph Yeager.
“It was a situation that things were said, things were done in the heat of
the moment, but not with any criminal intent,” Yeager said.
The woman reported the incident to police and filed a protection from abuse
order against Yanus. She later withdrew the order and asked the district
attorney’s office to drop the case.
Prosecutors chose to move forward with the charges, which Ciavarella and
Yeager said was an appropriate decision.
In his opening remarks Tuesday, Bigda admitted he did not know what, if
anything, the woman would say when called to testify. She answered only a few
questions before abruptly ending her testimony.
“I choose to plead the Fifth … for reasons that I don’t perjure myself,”
the woman said.
The onl