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Waiter faces rape charge

BY DAVID LINTON/SUN CHRONICLE STAFF
ATTLEBORO -- A 31-year-old city waiter is being held in jail without bail after pleading innocent Thursday to raping a female co-worker after work, possibly after lacing her wine with a drug, prosecutors said.

Vladimir A. Teixeira allegedly raped the 22-year-old woman Sunday night and early Monday morning at his North Main Street apartment near the restaurant, prosecutors said.

The Sun Chronicle is not reporting the name of the restaurant to protect the identity of the alleged victim.

The woman had two glasses of wine and a drink with the defendant Sunday night and only remembers waking up in the morning with Teixeira sexually assaulting her, Assistant District Attorney Robert Menzel said during a hearing in Attleboro District Court.

The woman has no memory of what occurred between the time they got off work and had drinks after 10 p.m. Sunday and the sexual assault later in the morning, Menzel said.

`` She may have been drugged for the purposes of sexual assault, your honor,'' Menzel told Judge James Sullivan.

The woman sought her own treatment at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston on Tuesday when police were notified of the incident by her father.

Menzel said police are awaiting the results of a toxicology exam to determine what, if any, drugs were in the woman's system.

Norton defense lawyer, Daniel Rich, who represents Teixeira, said his client denies the allegations.

He told police he washed the woman and her clothes after she became sick and vomited. He told the woman the same account, but she did not believe him and left the apartment, according to bail arguments.

Menzel said the Immigration and Naturalization Service has asked that the defendant, an illegal alien from Brazil, be held without bail because the agency wants to deport him.

Police said Teixeira was detained by federal authorities at Miami International Airport in August 2002 and was later deported.

Rich said his client was not detained but was stopped when he tried to get back in the United States. He said Teixeira first came to the United States in 1996, has no criminal record and has always been employed.

Teixeira was arrested Wednesday at the police station after an investigation by Detective Timothy Cook and detectives Sgt. Arthur Brillon, James Cote and Alex Aponte.

He's due back in court Aug. 29.