A woman testified Wednesday that the man charged with sexually assaulting one of his former tanning salon employees forcibly dragged her to his bedroom and assaulted her during an episode three years after the events at the center of the case.
The testimony of the woman, now 31, was an attempt by prosecutors to show a pattern of sexual assault by defendant Marc Winner, who operated the Soleil Tanning Salon. The woman testified Winner grabbed her by the neck, forced her to ingest pills, then pinned her to his bed and assaulted her at his apartment.
That description is similar to the testimony of the woman Winner is accused of raping. That woman, J.B., said from the stand Monday that Winner trapped her in his tanning salon, grabbed her and took her back to his apartment where he raped her twice in 2009.
The woman who testified Wednesday said she was at Winner’s apartment on Dec. 18, 2012, to gather drugs for her roommate. Winner had picked her up in his car, drove her to his apartment and made her a margarita before assaulting her, she said.
“He was holding my arms down and pinning me against the bed,” said the woman, identified in court as S.M. “… I kept asking him to stop, and I tried my best to wiggle out.”
The woman said she never reported the assault to police.
“I was afraid no one would believe me, and I just wanted to forget that it happened,” she said.
The woman denied she went to Winner’s apartment to exchange sexual favors for Adderall. She said she was “in a bad place in my life,” suffering from depression, and made a “bad choice” to go with Winner that night to pick up drugs.
The proceedings were part of Winner’s bench trial before Cook County Circuit Judge Carol Howard at the Leighton Criminal Court Building. This is the first trial of four separate pending sex assault cases against Winner.
Prosecutors have attempted to characterize Winner, 47, as a serial rapist. Howard has ruled they can introduce as evidence accusations that Winner attacked four other women besides J.B.
Winner’s attorney, Steven Weinberg, said Winner is an upstanding member of the community and chalked the allegations up to an intoxicated misunderstanding, saying the evening “turned romantic” but J.B. “became hysterical” after Winner made a derogatory remark to her when they became intimate.
J.B. said she was in a West Loop restaurant with a friend in July 2009 when she saw Winner. He invited the women to his apartment to use the restroom, and J.B. admitted she accepted “a small amount” of cocaine from him. When her friend left, J.B. said Winner dead-bolted the door and took her cellphone. He then grabbed her and took her back to his nearby apartment.
A forensic scientist at the Illinois State Police lab, Karen Abbinanti, also testified Wednesday, saying that DNA collected from swabs of J.B.’s vagina were “a partial male profile that matches Winner.”
Winner was arrested in 2009, then released without being charged after police were not informed that a DNA match had linked him, prosecutors said. He was arrested again in 2013, but a Cook County judge determined there was not enough probable cause to sustain the charges, records show. In 2016, prosecutors secured a grand jury indictment against him.
Records show prosecutors offered a plea agreement to Winner: If he pleaded to reduced charges in two of the cases, they would recommend consecutive sentences of 15 and three years and drop the other two cases against him. Winner rejected the offer.
The state rested its case Wednesday afternoon. The trial continues Thursday.
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