2 plead guilty to '08 rape, robbery

Last June, four men went to a West Philly house and tried to rob a man who had bragged about "coming into" a lot of money.

The terrified man said he didn't have any money, but told the armed thugs, whom he did not know, that his sister might have some, in hopes that they wouldn't kill him, Assistant District Attorney Bill Davis said yesterday.

But at the sister's South Philadelphia house, the men repeatedly raped the woman and robbed her of $700 they withdrew from her bank account.

Yesterday, two of the four men pleaded guilty to raping the 29-year-old woman and to related charges. Their co-defendants have decided to go to trial.

Marcus Bellinger, 19, and Tyree Johnson, 23, pleaded guilty to rape, robbery, conspiracy, kidnapping and possession of an instrument of crime for the assault on the woman, and also pleaded guilty to kidnapping her brother.

Meanwhile, Troy Bolling, 20, and Damar Hough, 25, face trial June 29.

The Daily News is withholding the victims' names to protect the sister's identity.

According to a summary of facts read by Davis in court yesterday and subsequent information from him:

At about 12 a.m. June 11, the men went to a house on Girard Avenue near 42nd Street and demanded money from a 25-year-old man, who "had been bragging he had come into a lot of money."

The thugs assaulted and pistol-whipped the man who was at the house but doesn't live there.

Terrified, the man took the robbers to his sister's house on Norwood Street, in South Philadelphia, telling them that his sister might have money. There, at about 4 or 5 a.m., the thugs demanded the woman's ATM card and PIN number.

Johnson and Bolling then took the brother to an ATM machine and withdrew $200 from the woman's account.

Meanwhile, Bellinger and Hough stayed at the house, where Bellinger raped the woman.

When the other two men and the brother returned, the four intruders repeatedly raped the woman, Davis said, while they made the brother watch.

The woman's daughter was sleeping nearby at the time and was not harmed, Davis said.

Afterward, the four men forced the woman and her brother to go to an ATM machine, where the defendants withdrew an additional $500.

The brother was later released on South Broad Street.

Bellinger is to be sentenced July 22 by Common Pleas Judge Rayford Means.

Johnson took a negotiated plea deal and was sentenced yesterday to 20 to 40 years in prison.

As Bellinger pleaded guilty yesterday, his mother wept softly in the courtroom.

Davis said that DNA evidence has linked Bellinger, Johnson and Bolling to the rape. *