Former Missouri officer acquitted in rape case

A former St. Louis police officer was acquitted Friday in a rape case filed after two former colleagues said they were assaulted more than a decade ago.

Jurors took just 90 minutes to find Lafeal Lawshea, 40, not guilty after he testified during the trial that sexual encounters with the women were consensual, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

Prosecutors argued Lawshea gave the women drinks that caused them to black out on separate nights in 2009 or 2010. One woman said she woke up to find Lawshea’s friend on top of her. The other said Lawshea was pinning her down when she woke up.

Lawshea’s attorney, Travis Noble, suggested that one woman claimed rape to make money on a potential lawsuit against the department and the other was embarrassed that she had sex with a Black man.

Lawshea’s co-defendant, Torey Phelps, was acquitted late last year of raping one of the women.