DECEMBER 15, 2017
A 25-year-old Blue Springs man pleaded guilty Friday to kidnapping and raping a Johnson County sheriff’s deputy.
William Luth is one of two men charged with attacking the deputy in October 2016 outside the Johnson County Detention Center in Olathe.
On Friday, he pleaded guilty to charges of aggravated kidnapping, two counts of rape and one count of aggravated criminal sodomy.
Sentencing was scheduled for Feb. 15. Under the plea agreement, attorneys on both sides will recommend a sentence of 41 years and three months.
Luth’s co-defendant, Brady Newman-Caddell, is also charged with raping another woman in Independence.
Caddell-Newman, 22, of Independence, is being held in the Johnson County Jail and is next scheduled to appear in court on Dec. 21.
Although Luth has not been charged in her case, the alleged victim of the Independence assault attended Friday’s hearing.
The deputy was also in the courtroom Friday, but did not speak.
She had only been on the job four months when she was assaulted. She testified at a preliminary hearing in February that she was on her way to work when she was approached by a man in the parking lot outside the detention center, directly across the street from the courthouse where Luth pleaded guilty Friday.
The deputy testified in February that the man who asked for directions, punched her head. He continued punching her and forced her into the back seat of a vehicle where another man was in the driver’s seat.
She testified that as the car drove off, the man who had punched her wrapped her sweatshirt around her head so she couldn’t see.
“Cooperate,” he told her. “I have a sharp, shiny object,” she testified that he said.
She said she believed he was referring to a knife.
The man who punched her and forced her into the car was called “Will” by the driver. He called the driver “Brady,” she said.
The man who went by Will had her take off her clothes. He then raped her and sodomized her. The men then switched places, and she was assaulted again.
The second man whispered to her that he was sorry and that he would get her out of it, she testified.
Eventually, she was dropped off in the Lee’s Summit area and walked to an office of the Jackson County sheriff’s office, where she got help.
Later DNA testing linked both Luth and Newman-Caddell to evidence found on the deputy’s body, and her DNA was found in a car that was registered to Luth’s wife, according to previous court testimony.
The deputy’s identification card was later found in a backpack Newman-Caddell had with him when he was arrested. Her watch and underwear like the brand of underwear she was wearing the night of the attack were found in the car registered to Luth’s wife, according to testimony.
On Friday, District Attorney Steve Howe said that investigators also used cell records to place Luth and Newman-Caddell in the area at the time.
In his statement to police after his arrest, Luth admitted that he had been with Newman-Caddell that night. He said they were drinking and smoking marijuana and he didn’t remember what had happened.
http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article189975719.html