Windermere man convicted of rape charges

A Windermere man was found guilty of attempted sexual battery and sexual battery with physical incapacitation during a jury trial March 6.

Darryl Wayne Patterson, 51, faces up to 45 years in prison for the two charges. He will be sentenced on May 4, according to Orange County court records.

“My office invested a lot of time, hard work and commitment to reach a guilty verdict, that we believe was warranted based upon the evidence and facts of the case,” said State Attorney Amaris Ayala. “We are pleased with the jury’s verdict and satisfied justice was served.”

It has taken a number of years to achieve Patterson’s conviction. In 2012, a woman who previously dated and lived with Patterson turned in a collection of videos to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office. She told Orange County investigators she took the tapes when she moved out of Patterson’s Windermere home and later viewed a portion of one of the tapes. She told investigators the recording she saw appeared to show Patterson engaging in sex acts with a woman who may have been unconscious or drugged, according to Patterson’s search warrant.

An Orange County detective viewed some the tapes and reported other recordings also appeared to depict Patterson engaging in sexual acts with other unidentified, incapacitated female victims. Orange County investigators learned that some of the crimes occurred at Patterson’s Windermere home, and the case was then turned over to the Windermere Police Department, according to the warrant.

“Our primary concern is just making sure these women are OK. ... I’m certainly pleased this jury found him guilty. … Because of the way this case was originally handled — it wasn’t handled appropriately — it took a lot of skill on the part of the prosecutors … the two prosecutors who worked on this case were outstanding.” - Detective John Allen

Once the videos made their way to the Windermere Police Department, investigators viewed the content. However, they determined the case as unfounded. One investigator, Detective Gene Powell, indicated he did not observe any of the victims resist and added he was unable to “determine if the female victims were being ‘raped’ because they woke up during the incidents and seemingly participated in the sex acts,” the warrant states.

The tapes were supposed to be returned to the Sheriff’s Office. Instead, they sat in a storage shed until rediscovered in late December 2014, after Patterson came into the Windermere Police Department to report that he’d been a victim of fraud, said current Windermere Detective John Allen.

Allen said one of his fellow officers recognized Patterson from the 2012 incidents. At that point, Allen started looking into the incidents. After finding no documented reports, they discovered the collection of tapes in a storage shed in the parking lot of the Windermere Police Department.

“Fortunately for us, there was a wadded-up Sheriff’s Office police report (with the tapes),” Allen said. “At this point, we looked at the videos … and obviously we were concerned, because these women were unconscious. One woman, she never really regained consciousness on the tape, so you’re concerned she could be dead.”

Windermere investigators then attempted to identify some of the women from the tapes and brought Patterson in for questioning in February 2015. About a month after questioning, Allen said Patterson attempted to rape another woman.

“He had essentially gotten this woman to meet him at a restaurant and (talked) her into taking him home,” Allen said. “He got her to his house and he gave her drinks, she got sick and started throwing up, (she) passed out and woke up with him on top of her.”

Allen said the woman fought Patterson off and ran from his home, but she did not report the incident until later.

“With the tapes and this recent report, that gave us enough to get a search warrant for his house,” Allen said. “We executed the search warrant on the house and we found additional tapes.”

After months of investigation and trying to identify the women in the tapes, Patterson was arrested in the summer of 2016. 

“Our primary concern is just making sure these women are OK,” Allen said. “I’m certainly pleased this jury found him guilty. … Because of the way this case was originally handled — it wasn’t handled appropriately — it took a lot of skill on the part of the prosecutors … the two prosecutors who worked on this case were outstanding.”

Although two victims testified against Patterson, he was only convicted of the charges involving one of the victims because the other woman’s case had some statute of limitation issues, Allen said.

“These are two very brave women,” Allen said. “Imagine finding out, years later, that you were raped by somebody that you considered a close friend and having to get up on the witness stand to testify to this. It took courage to do that.”

Police have yet to identify all the women in the tapes; however, Patterson also faces charges for an alleged sexual assault that occurred in Hernando County, Allen said.

Patterson’s defense attorney declined to comment.