Suspect faces charges of kidnapping, rape, robbery
By Kevin Kelley
Westlake
WEB UPDATED 4:30 P.M. June 28, 2006

Police mugshot of Curtis D. Sovern

Police sketch of suspect

The suspect in the alleged abduction and sexual assault of a 23-year-old woman pleaded not guilty to seven counts of rape, two of kidnapping, eight of aggravated robbery and one of receiving stolen property in Cuyahoga County Court Tuesday.

Curtis D. Sovern had been indicted by a Cuyahoga County grand jury June 22.

Sovern, 37, was arrested the evening of June 21 by the Missouri State Highway Patrol. He was driving the stolen 1999 Honda the woman had been about to enter shortly after midnight June 21 at the Promenade shopping center when the assault reportedly took place. The car was bearing New Jersey license plates when it was stopped on Interstate 70 near Boonville, Mo.

Westlake Police said the victim, a Brazilian working as an au pair for a Westlake family, immediately identified Sovern as the man who assaulted her when she viewed a photo spread which included a mug shot of the suspect. She then became emotionally overwrought, police said.

“She was immediate. She was emphatic,” Westlake Police Capt. Guy Turner said describing the victim’s identification of Sovern as the suspect. “She started crying. She called him a bad word.”

Sovern acknowledged involvement in an auto theft, police said, but admitted to nothing else. A black BB gun and the victim’s purse were found inside the vehicle, police said.

Sovern was declared indigent by the court Tuesday and assigned a public defender. As of Tuesday afternoon, Sovern was not able to post the $250,000 bond set by the court and remained in the county jail. His case was assigned to Judge Eileen T. Gallagher.

Sovern’s connection to Northeast Ohio, if any, is unknown. He has no known record, Turner said. He added Sovern’s name did not appear in any criminal databases commonly used by police. Turner asked for anyone who has had contact or worked with him in Northeast Ohio to contact the Westlake Police.

Sovern was initially jailed at the Cooper County Jail in Missouri.

The 1999 Honda, which belonged to the family the au pair was working for, was in the custody of the Missouri State Highway Patrol pending processing for evidence, police said. The au pair had permission to use the car from the family.

The au pair reported she had been abducted at gunpoint from a parking lot on the east side of the Promenade shopping center on Detroit Road just after midnight June 21 by a white male wielding a black semiautomatic handgun.

The victim described the suspect as a white male in his 30s, about 5-10 with a stocky build, a potbelly and a double chin. He was clean-shaven with dirty brown straight hair. He was wearing a matching blue or black jogging outfit, gray tennis shoes and a blue baseball cap with an unknown logo on it.

The suspect came up to the woman and asked her for a cigarette. He then reportedly covered the woman’s head and forced her into the passenger seat, and later the trunk, of the Honda.

A Cleveland patrolman apparently spotted the car in the Slavic Village area around 2 a.m. The officer randomly checked the car’s license plate number with a police database. But because no police report had been filed at the time, no alerts about the car came back and the officer took no action.

The woman told police she was sexually assaulted twice. After being driven around for about four hours, the woman was released on Lands End Lane in Westlake. She went to the nearby home of Browns offensive lineman Ryan Tucker, whose wife called police.

“She was lying in the fetal position on the front porch, crying hysterically,” Tucker told The Plain Dealer. “She looked up and said, ‘Help me. Help me.’”

A Westlake Fire Department ambulance took her to St. John West Shore Hospital for treatment. She had minor abrasions, police said.