{"id":45501,"date":"2021-07-30T18:10:00","date_gmt":"2021-07-31T00:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/date-rape-charges-dropped-man-sentenced-for-theft-assault\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:25:38","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:25:38","slug":"date-rape-charges-dropped-man-sentenced-for-theft-assault","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/date-rape-charges-dropped-man-sentenced-for-theft-assault\/","title":{"rendered":"Date rape charges dropped; man sentenced for theft, assault"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Benjamin\"
Benjamin<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A Durango man suspected of sexually assaulting a woman after giving her a date rape drug has been sentenced to three years\u2019 probation.<\/p>\n

Jordan Tyler Benjamin, 26, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault and felony theft in a plea agreement with the 6th Judicial District Attorney\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

Benjamin faced charges of sexually assaulting a helpless victim, sexually assaulting a victim incapable of appraising her condition and sexual assault without consent, but those charges were dropped as part of the plea agreement.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors said they lacked forensic evidence about the alleged assault or drug used to support the sex charges.<\/p>\n

District Attorney Christian Champagne said sexual assault cases involving date rape drugs, lack of physical evidence and reluctance on the part of victims to pursue charges can make prosecution difficult.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is always a very difficult situation when you\u2019re dealing with an allegation of sexual assault and you\u2019ve got a situation where people\u2019s abilities to accurately perceive what was occurring is influenced by intoxicants, whether voluntary or involuntary,\u201d Champagne said. \u201cIt makes it very difficult to understand exactly what was going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Champagne said his office takes victims\u2019 input seriously in all cases, especially in sexual assault cases. Sometimes, victims are reluctant and unsure about moving forward in the judicial process, and prosecutors take that into consideration. \u201cSo that was part of the analysis here, the victim\u2019s input,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you have a combination of hazy perceptions and the inability to corroborate with forensic evidence, and a certain level of reticence about the process and going through the process, that\u2019s kind of what came together in this case,\u201d Champagne said.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors still had sufficient evidence to proceed with the theft and assault charges, he said.<\/p>\n

Benjamin was facing up to five years in prison under terms of the plea agreement, and prosecutors asked for incarceration, Champagne said, but Senior Judge Gregory Lyman opted for a probationary sentence.<\/p>\n

According to an arrest affidavit, Benjamin was suspected of giving a woman a date rape drug and having sexual relations with her sometime between 9 and 9:30 p.m. Aug. 10 in an alley in downtown Durango. The woman\u2019s boyfriend happened to come upon the situation, and at first he thought his girlfriend was cheating on him, according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n

The boyfriend left the area, but upon returning he realized something different was happening. Benjamin apparently became startled, jumped up, pulled his pants up and warned onlookers that he had a gun, according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n

The woman regained consciousness during the assault, about the time her boyfriend arrived on scene, according to an earlier interview with the Durango Police Department. Benjamin reportedly stole the woman\u2019s purse and a cellphone, according to police.<\/p>\n

Benjamin was later arrested on unrelated charges, and during the jail booking process, a sergeant located a black cellphone that had been reported stolen. The phone belonged to the woman\u2019s boyfriend.<\/p>\n

The woman was shown a photo lineup, and she immediately identified Benjamin as the man who sexually assaulted her, according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n

According to the woman, she had just meet Benjamin and they drank beers at a downtown restaurant. The woman said she left her beer unattended a couple of times \u2013 once to smoke a cigarette and once to go to the bathroom.<\/p>\n

She told police she and Benjamin never talked about having sex. Eventually, \u201cthings started getting fuzzy,\u201d she said. She said she didn\u2019t remember much after that, other than being in the alley, feeling \u201cpressure\u201d and feeling her body freeze.<\/p>\n

Champagne said rape exams and drug-facilitated crime testing are time-sensitive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose drugs metabolize, generally, in sometimes less than 24 hours, so they\u2019re very time-sensitive,\u201d Champagne said. \u201cIn this particular case, we did not develop enough evidence from that testing to reveal any of those types of drugs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t mean it didn\u2019t happen, it just means we weren\u2019t able to detect those drugs in her system,\u201d Champagne said. \u201c\u2026 We just weren\u2019t able to develop the evidence that we needed to support this kind of case.\u201d<\/p>\n

shane@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prosecutors say victim reticence, lack of physical evidence led to plea agreement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45502,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1078,585,133,168,28,74],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-45501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-6th-judicial-district","tag-assault-general","tag-courts","tag-crime","tag-headlines","tag-theft"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45501"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86518,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45501\/revisions\/86518"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45501"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=45501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}