Man accused of rape wants jury to hear evidence of victim’s motive

By GAIL OBER, LACONIA DAILY SUN

LACONIA — A Gilford man accused of forcibly raping his girlfriend in January has asked that the jury be allowed to read requests he made in family court asking for custody of his minor daughter, saying that his requests for custody gave her a motive to fabricate the alleged rape.

Carroll Thompson, 33, has also requested the jury hear recordings of conversations between him and his alleged victim, extracted by police, that he says are evidence of her drug abuse, her hatred of him, her violent threats, and her desire to take her child back to Concord where she was allegedly involved in heroin use.

Thompson lived in Sergeant Park with the alleged victim and their 3-year-old child from Christmas of 2015 until Jan. 20, 2016, when she called the police and said that he forcibly raped her.

Thompson has said he didn't do it and that she fabricated the entire thing to keep him from petitioning the court a second time for custody of their child because of her alleged heroin use.

The paperwork he wants the jury to see is an emergency written request he made for custody of the child on Nov. 2 to the 4th Circuit Family Court, Laconia Division.

In that request, Thompson said that the alleged victim had contacted him in July and asked him for help in quitting heroin, so he accompanied her to her sister's home in Vermont. He said her sister called the police for fear that the alleged victim was dying but the police said she was not dying.

He said that after three days, she returned to using heroin and told him the the child would be safer with him. He wrote that she called him in August, said she was being abused by someone in Concord and wanted to live with him and the child in Gilford.

He said she came to Gilford in August with the child but left because she didn't get along with Thompson's mother. He wrote that she and the child were staying in various hotel rooms and also learned that the person she was supposed to be staying with hadn't seen much of her or their child.

Thompson said he also learned she was using heroin again and filed an emergency order for temporary custody.

Thompson withdrew his request about two weeks later because he said he was told she had entered into a detoxification clinic on her own and the child was with her family and was safe.

"This is a big step in the right direction for her ... for recovery," he wrote, in his request to withdraw the custody petition.

Thompson feels that if the jury learns about the request he made for custody along with recovered phone conversations in which the alleged victim threatens to kill him and others and also says there never was a detox clinic, that they will understand her motive for fabricating the rape accusations.

The state has yet to respond to the motions and a hearing is scheduled for later this month. No date has been set for the trial and Thompson has been in the Belknap County House of Corrections since his arrest on Jan. 21 after being ordered held on $25,000 cash-only bail.