Accuser testimony continues in senator sex assault case

ST. ALBANS, Vt. – A woman accusing a suspended Vermont state senator of repeatedly sexually assaulting her is due back on the witness stand Thursday in the lawmaker’s sexual assault trial for more cross-examination.

Sen. Norman McAllister, on trial on two counts of sexual assault, sat stoically at the defence table on the trial’s first day Wednesday as the 21-year-old woman testified that he forced her to have oral sex in a barn at his farm and intercourse at his home.

The trial is expected to include testimony from some of McAllister’s legislative colleagues.

He also faces another trial in the case this fall on sex offences involving two other women.

McAllister has pleaded not guilty to the charges. If convicted he could be sentenced to life in prison.

On Wednesday, one of the Franklin County Republican’s defence lawyers, David Williams, got the woman to acknowledge she had changed key aspects of her accounts of the sexual assaults from what she told police on the day McAllister was arrested, to pre-trial sworn statements to lawyers, to her testimony to the jury earlier Wednesday.

The 4-foot, 11-inch woman, who weighs less than 100 pounds, spoke of up to 30 incidents in which she said McAllister, a foot taller and 230 pounds, overpowered her.