Student tells of abduction, rape and slashing

A 16-year-old Simon Gratz High School student testified yesterday that a stranger abducted her on her way to school earlier this month, raped her repeatedly in his home, then drove her to a park and slashed her throat.

The teen walked into Family Court with a bandage on her neck. She identified Jason Johnson, 32, of East Frankford, as the man who attacked her.

After hearing her testimony, Common Pleas Judge Alfred J. DiBona Jr. held Johnson for trial on attempted murder, aggravated assault, rape, weapons offenses and related charges.

Johnson is accused of abducting the girl, a sophomore, about 7 a.m. Jan. 3 as she was crossing a playground near Oxford and Leiper streets, a few blocks from his home.

"He tells her he has a gun," Assistant District Attorney Richard DeSipio said after the preliminary hearing, recounting the teen's testimony.

DeSipio described the teen's ordeal over the next 12 hours:

According to her testimony, Johnson took her to his first-floor apartment on Orthodox Street near Lesher. Inside the bedroom, he forced her to take off her clothes and put on a bikini. He then took photos of her with a cell-phone camera.

After she refused to kiss him, he slapped her in the face. He then took off the bikini and performed oral sex on her. He also forced her to perform oral sex on him.

He also raped her.

At some point, Johnson choked her with his hands. When she tried to yell, he choked her with a scarf, causing her to black out. When she woke up, she found herself inside a big duffel bag.

Johnson also tied her up for a half-hour so he could leave the room. He bound her hands with extension cords and handcuffed her to the bed. He then tied her feet with Timberland boot shoelacesand stuffed her mouth with a sock.

He raped her again after he returned.

He then had her put her clothes back on, except for her bra and panties, which he kept. He forced her into his car and drove to Wissinoming Park, a mile away.

At a park bench, Johnson paced back and forth for a while contemplating what to do with the teen. He then took a pocketknife and "slit her throat and told her she was going to die," and told her not to tell anyone, DeSipio said. During the attack, the girl tried fending off the knife and cut a finger.

Johnson then put her back in the car and forced her to perform oral sex on him. While she was doing so, blood from her neck and finger dripped inside the car, and he got angry. That's when he began choking her, and she bit his forearm. During the struggle, he pushed her out of the car door, which apparently was partly open, and then drove away.

The teen ran to Frankford and Cheltenham avenues and flagged down two men in a car, who stopped and helped her.

Under cross-examination by public defender Elizabeth McHugh, the teen said she was raped "about three times." Police Detective Harry Young of the Special Victims Unit, testified yesterday that the day after the girl was raped, police recovered a gun in Johnson's car. *