Lawyer is found guilty of sex assault; prosecutor argued lip balm was attempt to destroy evidence
A Chicago lawyer has been found guilty of sex assault and sex abuse in an attack on a woman who left her hotel room door propped open for a college classmate.
Jurors deliberated six hours before returning the guilty verdict against Anthony Bergamino Jr., the Chicago Tribune reports. The Chicago Sun-Times also has a story.
Bergamino, 51, had maintained the encounter was consensual. He testified he had spoken with the woman outside the hotel and she gave him her room number. He also explained that he had coated his hands with lip balm at the police station because there was no running water in the restroom. Bergamino said he was the “son of a germophobe” and the lip balm had anti-microbial properties.
In closing arguments, Assistant State’s Attorney Tracy Senica disputed that claim, the stories say. “He’s not the MacGyver of germophobes, folks. He’s a rapist destroying evidence,” Senica said.
Senica said Bergamino’s “baloney” account—that the rape victim had taken his hand and led him to the bed—sounded like a “poorly-written plot to an adult movie.”
