Man who posed as Uber driver and raped woman in Overland Park fails to withdraw plea
A Kansas City man convicted of kidnapping and raping a woman in Overland Park after pretending to be an Uber driver was sentenced Tuesday to nearly 17 years in prison.
Dereje Gebremariam, 45, was sentenced in Johnson County District Court after he pleaded no contest to charges of rape and kidnapping in April. As part of a plea agreement he will receive about 3.5 years of credit for the time he served in jail while his case was pending. He will be required to register as a sex offender.
The sentencing followed a ruling Tuesday by Judge Kelly Ryan to deny Gebremariam’s request to withdraw his plea and to delay his sentencing by 30 days so that he could hire an attorney who spoke the same language as him. His attorney filed a notice of appeal after the hearing.
According to court records Gebremariam picked up a man and woman at the Kansas City Power & Light District in August of 2016, pretending to be their Uber driver.
While driving the couple back to a hotel in Overland Park he stopped at a gas station to allow the man to use a restroom. Once the man left the car, Gebremariam allegedly drove away with the woman still in the vehicle.
The woman testified at a pretrial hearing that she remembered nothing after leaving Power & Light until she woke up to the man sexually assaulting her in the back of the car.
Gebremaiam dropped her off at the hotel after the alleged assault. She later identified him in a photo lineup, according to court documents.
The plea agreement in the case, attorneys said, was reached at the “11th hour” before Gebremariam’s case was scheduled to go to trial. The agreement, they said, meant the unnamed victim did not have to testify in front of a jury.
“I believe this gave my client something of a light at the end of the tunnel,” his attorney Jason Billam said.
Effort to delay sentencing
In July Gebremariam filed a motion to withdraw his plea, saying he was hindered by language barriers and that his attorney coerced him into accepting the plea deal. Judge Ryan denied the motions in February.
Court filings added that Gebremariam’s family had found an attorney in another state who spoke his native language, Amharic.
Gebremariam’s cousin, Yedi Gebremichael, said that Gebremariam is originally from Ethiopia and does not understand the court system or his rights in America.
Gebremichael said he believes the evidence does not support his cousin’s conviction and that Tuesday’s hearing was a “slap in the face.” He said there was an effort to conclude the case quickly.
“I’m not very happy with the decision that they made,” Gebremichael said. “He has to finish up this case, wrap it up.”
Speaking through an interpreter, Gebremariam said Tuesday that previous interpreters failed to effectively communicate and that he did not understand what was happening in his case. He said he believed he would be better represented by an attorney who spoke the same language as him.
“I am not aware of the whole situation that is going on right now,” he said through an interpreter.
Billam, his attorney, did not endorse his client’s motions and declined to comment after the hearing.
Prosecuting Attorney Joshua Brunkhorst argued against the motions. He said the issues had already been litigated at a February hearing and suggested that Gebremariam was simply looking to delay the end of his Kansas case because of rape and burglary charges filed against him in Clay County in 2018.
“I believe this defendant is playing games,” Brunkhorst said.
Billam filed an appeal in the case following the hearing Tuesday.
Gebremichael said the family will try to hire the attorney who speaks the same language as Gebremariam to represent him in the appeals process.
This story was originally published March 10, 2020 at 5:53 PM.
