Uses Monocular to Identify Alleged Rapist : Legally Blind Student Points to Suspect

Peering through a six-inch monocular, a legally blind California State University, Northridge student pointed to defendant Joseph Richard Taylor in a San Fernando Superior courtroom Monday and said he was the man who raped her.

“He grabbed a knife, put it next to my throat and said I had a crazy man in my apartment,” the 19-year-old woman testified during Taylor’s trial on rape and other charges. “He said if I screamed, he would kill me.”

The woman said her vision is 20/200. She can read and see nearby objects using thick bifocals. She can see greater distances only when using the monocular, which resembles a pocket telescope.

She testified that, on Sept. 10, 1984, Taylor--who once attended CSUN under a program for ex-convicts--followed her to the University Towers Apartments on campus, where he forced his way into her quarters.

“He said he was going to teach me a lesson because I was white,” the student testified about Taylor, who is black.

After raping the woman, who was 17 at the time, Taylor then awakened her 18-year-old roommate and threatened her with a butcher knife, the blind woman testified.

The woman’s roommate, who also took the witness stand Monday, testified that Taylor choked her, called her a name and said “he was doing us a favor by raping” the younger woman. Taylor, she testified, then tied her with tape and took $20 from her purse before fleeing.

Taylor, 27, was arrested in January on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon stemming from an incident at a Parthenia Street apartment. While he was in custody, police noticed that he matched the description of the assailant in the CSUN case.

A university police spokesman said Taylor was enrolled at the Northridge campus during the 1980-81 school year under a program in which former prison inmates receive counseling and tutoring while attending regular classes. He had been convicted of committing a series of assaults in the San Fernando Valley, said the spokesman, and was on parole while attending CSUN. He was no longer a student at the time the woman was assaulted.

Taylor, who is charged with rape, assault with a deadly weapon, burglary and robbery, faces a prison term of up to 35 years if convicted, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Kent Cahill.