Woman testifies about stranger-rape, kidnapping in Hillsboro

A 27-year-old woman testified in Washington County Circuit Court on Thursday, telling jurors the story of how she was raped by a stranger when she was eight months pregnant last year in May.

The man charged with the crime is 47-year-old Jose Carlos Portillo-Ventura. He is on trial before Judge Thomas Kohl on two counts each of first-degree kidnapping, rape and sex abuse.

On Thursday afternoon, she testified that on the morning of May 10 she was walking to the store in Hillsboro to pick up a few items for breakfast when a man pulled up alongside her in a car.

He told her he was moving and he had some baby furniture she might be interested in, she said. He asked if she wanted to go see it, she said. She called her husband three times, but wasn't able to reach him, before deciding to go with the man.

When she entered the house, she said, she knew something was wrong. She didn't see any baby items in the living room, where she expected them to be.

The man told her the baby furniture was in a bedroom, she said. She told him she wanted to leave. She took her cell phone out of her pocket and he took it from her, she said.

He then pulled her into the bedroom, covering her mouth as she started screaming, she said.

She pleaded with him, she said. She testified that she told him, "I'm pregnant, I can't have relations."

He said, "No, you're going to like it," she testified. He then took a pair of handcuffs from his dresser, and told her he was going to tie her up if she didn't calm down, she said.

He lowered her pants, she said, moved her in front of his bed and told her to bend over.  "I said no because I didn't want to harm my child," she said. "That's when he had relations with me the first time that he did it."

As she testified about the events of the next several hours, she looked down and spoke in a soft voice that quavered at times. She didn't look at Portillo-Ventura until prosecutor Roger Hanlon asked her to point him out.

After the first rape, she said, she told him she needed to leave and see her son. The man told her she couldn't leave and that he wanted to "be a family" with her, she said.

Throughout the afternoon, he raped her several more times, she said.  At one point, she hit him, she said. He then tried to choke her to death, she said, and "he almost succeeded." He relented when she told him he could do whatever he wanted to her, she said.

Their conversation about becoming a family continued, she said, as she tried to placate him. She continued telling him she needed to leave, she said.

Finally, she said, he asked her why she didn't like him. "I told him this wasn't a way to get near a person if you wanted to be with them," she said. "I said I needed time."  She told him she'd be with him after her baby was born, she said.

She eventually left when a person approached the house, and Portillo-Ventura needed to hide her, she said. He agreed to let her go but kept her phone and made plans to see her again.

She saw a little girl standing in a yard nearby, she said. She asked the girl if she could use the phone, she said. The girl's father took the woman to the police station, where she reported the incident to Hillsboro police at about 6:30 p.m.

Portillo-Ventura was arrested at his workplace in Forest Grove later that evening.

Trial continues Tuesday.

NOTE:  Not included in the article is that Portillo-Ventura has been incarcerated with an ICE hold, indicating he may be in the country illegally.