AUBURN -- The legal fight continues over a Cayuga County man accused of attacking two workers at an Auburn prison.
Raymond Clyde was convicted, his convictions were later thrown out and then just reinstated.
This story begins on July 7, 2006, when prosecutors say Raymond Clyde attacked, assaulted, gagged and bound a female worker at Auburn Correctional Facility. They say he also attacked and injured a male worker who tried to stop the attack.
In 2007, Clyde was convicted by a Cayuga County jury of attempted rape, assault, unlawful imprisonment and promoting prison contraband. After the verdict, the court dismissed the attempted rape count based on insufficient evidence. The following year, Clyde was sentenced to 37 years to life in prison on the other convictions.
Clyde later appealed his convictions. Prosecutors appealed the dismissal of the attempted rape charges.
In April 2010, the Appellate Court threw out Clyde's convictions based on the use of leg shackles at trial. The court also refused to reinstate the attempted rape conviction. Prosecutors later appealed the ruling to the Court of Appeals.
The Court decided Tuesday to reinstate Clyde's convictions. The court found that Clyde's shackling during his trial did not lead to his conviction, rather the eyewitness testimony and DNA presented a trial. The Court also found there was sufficient evident to support the attempted rape conviction.
Read the court's full decision here.
"The Appellate Division will now consider Clyde's other arguments," said Cayuga County Chief Assistant District Attorney Christopher Valdina. "However, his other arguments are arguments routinely raised by convicted criminal defendants and I am confident that we will get a good outcome."
Valdina says he's pleased with the Court's ruling. "Getting the Appellate Division reversed was a lot of work," he said. " We did it to keep a serial rapist behind bars for as long as possible without a retrial. I don't want the victim to have to be in the same room with this individual ever again."
When the 2006 attack happened, Clyde was in prison for a 1996 attack on a Manhattan woman where he followed her to her apartment where he then bound, brutally raped, sodomized and robbed her.
"He brutally attacked and tried to rape a woman while he was already in prison for a brutal rape," Valdina said. "We will continue to work to ensure that this violent criminal is never free in society again."
The male worker who rescued the victim in the Auburn prison attack, Anthony Rebich, was later awarded a commendation for his efforts.
