Prosecutor says MPD officer took advantage of unconscious woman

Attorneys in the case of a Minneapolis police officer accused of criminal sexual conduct on Wednesday offered very different accounts of the night of the alleged crime.

In opening statements delivered in Hennepin County court, prosecutor Cheri Townsend said officer Thomas Tichich took advantage of an unconscious woman after two unsuccessful attempts to hook up with the woman's friend at her home in northeast Minneapolis.

"He persisted with someone who couldn't say no," said Townsend to a jury made up of 10 women and four men.

Townsend said the victim had consumed five or six drinks on the evening of Dec. 14 with her friend and Tichich at a nearby bar. Townsend said the victim didn't know that while she was passed out on her friend's couch the next morning, Tichich had tried to force her to have oral sex with him.

"Thomas Tichich didn't sexually assault anyone that night," said defense attorney Peter Wold.

Wold said the alleged victim was awake and consented to sexual behavior. Wold said the woman's friend interrupted the two having an intimate moment. The woman testified that she yelled at Tichich to get out of her house and took photos which captured part of the incident.

Wold acknowledged that Tichich made advances towards the alleged victim's friend earlier in the evening because he felt as though the woman invited him upstairs to her bedroom.

"He felt romance was in the air," said Wold, referring to Tichich's interest in the friend. "It wasn't."

However, Wold said Tichich spoke with the alleged victim who was awake and standing in the kitchen in the middle of the night. The two had known each other for years, said Wold. The victim had a long-term relationship with Tichich's MPD partner that had ended more than a decade ago.

Wold said that while Tichich is embarrassed by the presence of a picture of his "naked backside" being displayed in court, his actions that night were not illegal.