A Florida man was found guilty of the rape, kidnapping and attempted murder of his ex-wife after he abruptly axed his lawyer, so he could cross-examine her in a move that proved unpopular with the jury.
It took the panel just under five hours on Friday to convict Trevor Summers, 45, of all 11 counts against him.
In a surprise twist, Summers decided to represent himself last week and grill ex-wife Alisa Mathewson on the stand after she testified that he took her hostage, hogtied her and sexually assaulted her during a terrifying two-day ordeal in which she thought she was going to die.
"Did I threaten you to have sex?" Summers asked Mathewson, with whom he shares five children, during cross-examination in Tampa's Hillsborough County Circuit Court.
A FLORIDA MAN ON TRIAL FOR RAPE OF EX-WIFE FIRES LAWYER AND CROSS-EXAMINES VICTIM
"You broke into my home in the middle of the night when I was sleeping, attacked me and tied me up. Yes, I take that as you threatened me to have sex with you. You forced me to have sex with you,"she said, growing visibly distraught. "You raped me!"
Summers calmly pressed, "So you're calling it rape?"
"That is the definition of rape!" Mathewson retorted.
After finding out that Mathewson had started dating other men amid their bitter divorce, Summers hatched a murder-suicide plot. He crawled through the window of her home on March 11, 2017, sent their children away then tied up Mathewson with Christmas lights.
She testified that he raped her twice, smothered her with a pillow until she lost consciousness and strangled her with a rope – all despite an order of protection barring all contact.
While she was hogtied, Mathewson drove her through numerous counties in Florida. At a Walgreens parking lot, she briefly escaped and cried out, "Please help! Call the police." But Summers dragged her back into the car and sliced one of wrists as punishment, she testified.
The twisted father wrote goodbye letters to their children promising that mom and dad would be "watching you from heaven" -- but police closed in before he could execute his sick plan.
The most damning witness in the case may have been Summers himself, who recorded videos confessing to the crime that were played for jurors in court.
"I woke Alisa up, and I have been holding her against her will since —" he said in one clip. "And I did tie her up to keep her from contacting the authorities and give me enough time to get out of town."
