Former Penn College student charged with raping unconscious woman in dorm room
While a student last year at the Pennsylvania College of Technology, 20-year-old David Allen Michaels III raped a woman in his dorm room while she was unconscious, Penn College officer Fletcher W. Farr alleged in an affidavit.
Michael, who lives in Monroe Township near Harveys Lake, is alleged to have sexually assaulted the woman, who admitted she did not remember “any part of the sexual assault. She stated she was unconscious due to the alcohol and marijuana that she had consumed,” the officer wrote in the court document. The alleged rape took place during the early morning hours of last April 20. Investigators first became aware of it the next day after another Penn College officer was told “to retrieve a SANE kit from the UPMC Williamsport emergency room,” where the woman had reportedly been treated. SANE is a sexual assault nurse examiner kit that is used to colllect evidence from victims who have been assaulted. The hospital had alerted Penn College police because the rape had taken place on the school’s campus.
After the kit was picked up, police reached out to the woman who said she was “unconscious in Michaels’ room when she was sexually assaulted, and that she wanted to pursue prosecution,” the affidavit stated. On April 22, the victim same to police headquarters and was questioned in detail by the department’s sexual assault investigator.
The woman said she had known Michaels “for about a month” and that the two were in “an off and on” relationship, but were currently not dating, police said. She went on to say that she “likes to go to parties and dance, and meet everyone at the parties,” police said, adding that the victim said “there was a lot of drama surrounding Michaels and she didn’t want to be any part of it.”
The woman said she was invited to a campfire party by a group of friends, and that she too invited some of her own friends to attend, one of whom invited Michaels, the investigator was told. She said she didn’t mind that Michaels was there, she just didn’t want to talk to him, the affidavit stated. She admitted that she got “‘really high and drunk,’ and couldn’t focus. She felt ‘disassociated and didn’t remember’ a lot of what happened,” police said. After leaving the party, the woman along with Michaels and three other friends went to Michaels’ dorm room, the investigator was told. Feeling disoriented, the victim lay on Michaels’ bed and fell asleep. Three of the friends eventually left the room, leaving Michaels and the woman alone, police said. The woman awoke hours later with her pants and underwear removed as she saw Michaels “putting on his pants” as he got ready to leave, it was stated in the court document.
Michaels, who is no longer enrolled at the college, turned himself in Friday and was arraigned before District Judge Gary Whiteman on felony charges of rape of an unconscious person and sexual assault, which were filed earlier this month. He was released on $25,000 bail.



