The woman was sleeping under an E. Broad Street bridge that spans Big Walnut Creek just east of Hamilton Road when she was raped on the afternoon of March 12. She said she usually stayed there with her then-boyfriend but was alone when she awoke to a stranger attacking her. He struck her in the head repeatedly and forced intercourse, she said. After he ran away, she walked to a nearby convenience store and, bleeding from a head injury, asked a clerk to call police.The woman was so determined to see Paul Hubert convicted, she made her way to six court appearances in the last year:
“He was counting on her not showing up,” Ashenhurst said. “If it wasn’t for her cooperation, he would have walked.”Her persistance paid off:The woman said she found her way to at least a half-dozen court dates in the past 11 months, sometimes getting bus passes from prosecutors, other times panhandling for bus fare. She said she walked to the Downtown courthouse at least twice, a journey that took about three hours.
“I didn’t want to see him do it to anyone else,” she said of her determination to attend the hearings. “If he would do that to me, imagine what he might do to his next victim.”
A judge last week sentenced 54-year-old Paul Hubert to three years in prison after he pleaded guilty to rape.The unnamed woman is now seeking a more permanent home.Hubert's attorney blamed what happened on drugs and alcohol.