A man charged with raping a woman in Atlanta has said that his good looks partly explain why it was a consensual act.
Last September, Darrious Mathis from Georgia was tried in court for kidnapping, raping and robbing a woman. However, the judge declared a mistrial.
The case is being heard again, and it is expected that Mathis will continue the same line of defence - that it was his good looks, rather than his gun, which convinced the woman to get into the stranger's car.
While the 24-year-old victim says she was abducted at gunpoint from an Austell CVS, driven into Atlanta, where she was sexually assaulted, Mathis claims the act was consensual, and the woman went home with him willingly.
Kiro TV report that the woman told the court: "He had told me to get in the car and I actually begged him to take my car. I had pushed my wallet that was in my hand and my keys toward him and I was like 'Please take my car. You can take my cards and everything."
However, Mathis has a rather different version of events.
According to his defence lawyer Carter Clayton, the young man walked up to the woman with a bottle of prescription medication pills, offered them up for sale, and the victim agreed to ride with him to the bank.
"He walked up to her with a bottle of Vicodin and said, 'Wanna buy some pills? She said, "Sure," get in. We'll go to the ATM," said Clayton.
Mathis denies he had a gun, and his defence team insist it was his good looks that helped convinced the woman to get into his car.