Charges against two men accused of rape dropped after prosecutor says alleged victim could not be located | News, Sports, Jobs

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

From left, Dionte Brown, Tiger Smiley, Murphy Theodore and Malachi Thomas are pictured during their preliminary hearing on June 27, 2023.

Charges against two men accused of rape were dropped Wednesday in Douglas County District Court after prosecutors said they were unable to find the alleged victim to testify.

The cases against Dionte Lamont Brown, 22, of Topeka, and Malachi Samuel Thomas, 24, of Lawrence, were originally scheduled to go to trial on Monday, July 8. They and two other co-defendants were accused of engaging in sexual acts with a woman over several days in March 2023 while she was high on drugs and unconscious and intermittent, according to an arrest affidavit. Charging documents alleged that Thomas also beat the woman with a pellet gun and that Brown used two bottles to rape the woman.

But on Wednesday, Assistant District Attorney David Greenwald filed a motion to have all charges against Brown and Thomas dismissed without prejudice, meaning they could be refiled at a later date. In his motion, Greenwald wrote that “the State is unable to find the victim to testify.”

In another motion filed Monday, Greenwald wrote that the woman had previously been in regular contact with law enforcement, despite having moved out of state, and that she had wanted to pursue the case against the men. But that contact ended in January, according to the motion, although numerous attempts have been made to reach the woman since then. The woman’s mother also informed police that she had not been able to reach the woman since June 14, according to the motion.

The motion filed Monday asked the court whether the trial could continue regardless based on the woman's testimony at a previous hearing. Court records do not show that a decision has been made on that issue.

Brown, Thomas and their co-defendants, Tiger Joe Smiley, 22, of Topeka, and Murphy Theodore, 26, of Lawrence, were each charged with at least one count of rape in the case. Thomas was also charged with one count of aggravated sodomy, one count of aggravated battery and one count of invasion of privacy for allegedly distributing nude images of the woman; and Theodore was charged with an additional count of rape and one count of invasion of privacy.

Charges against Smiley and Theodore have not been dropped and they are both scheduled to go to trial in October, according to court documents.

Before the charges against Brown and Thomas were dropped, Brown had been released on $50,000 bail and Thomas on $100,000 bail. Smiley is currently out on $50,000 bail and Theodore is being held in the Douglas County Jail on $200,000 bail.