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Larry Ray was convicted to assault for the brutal beating of a Health System employee last January. and Faye Iosotaluno After hearing three days of testimony, a jury yesterday found Larry Ray guilty of robbery, aggravated assault and burglary in connection with the January 19 incident at the Penn Tower Hotel that left a University Health System secretary bloodily beaten and led administrators to revamp security measures at the facility. Ray, 28, of the 1500 block of Hemberger Way in North Philadelphia, could potentially spend a "significant number of years in prison" for the assault of Toby Laiken in her sixth-floor cubicle, according to Ellen Greenlee, the chief defender in the Philadelphia public defender's office. Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge Patricia McInerney will sentence Ray on December 15 after considering factors such as Ray's psychological analysis and his prior record. When the jury's foreman read the verdict, Ray's mother -- whose name was not immediately available -- ran over to Laiken, repeatedly crying, "May God save your soul! My son did not do that!" Court officers restrained her as they took away her son. "I understand how she feels," said Jerry Laiken, the victim's husband and a University Physical Plant employee. "I told her, 'May God also have mercy on you and your family.' What she said is not a bad thing." "A burden has been lifted off of our hearts," Laiken added. "We hope that we can make a life for ourselves and our family. The Penn community has been beautiful. They have reached out to us, and without their support we could not have made it." Toby Laiken said she was "pleased" with the verdict. "I told the truth, and it will set you free," she said. Assistant District Attorney Dino Privitera, the case's prosecutor, said the jury found the evidence "overwhelming and compelling" and that the jurors "did their jobs." Ray's attorney, Valerie Jones, declined to comment after the verdict, referring questions to Greenlee, who said she did not know the specifics of the case. The primary evidence against Ray was Laiken's identification of him in a police photo spread. Laiken did not rush to judgment on identifying Ray as the assailant, Privitera stressed. "She had 48 opportunities to point the finger? but she pointed out Ray with no hesitation [and] with absolute certainty," he said in his closing statement. Two alleged admissions of guilt by Ray and a Penn Tower security video showing a man entering and leaving the building at the approximate time of the robbery were the other primary points of evidence against the defendant. In reaching its verdict, the jury overlooked some imperfections in evidence presented by the prosecution and the lack of any physical evidence connecting Ray to the crime scene. Ray allegedly told University Police Detective Patricia Brennan, "I didn't mean to hurt anyone," while she and Ray were alone in the "graffiti" interrogation room in the Philadelphia Police Department's Southwest Detectives bureau at 55th and Pine streets. The confession was not written down at that moment, and Ray had never signed a statement to police. The other alleged admission of guilt was overheard by Ray's cousin, Casey Brunson, after he signed a statement saying that Ray "beat the shit out of a white bitch." Upon testifying as a hostile witness for the prosecution, Brunson recanted, denying that he ever signed a statement saying that Ray committed the crimes. Jones said in her closing statement that police were "back to square one because there was no reliable information in this case." She claimed that the police coerced statements from Ray. Philadelphia Police Det. Christopher Lee testified that the police sought to elicit a confession from Ray upon his February 9 arrest while at work cleaning the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity house at 3916 Spruce Street. Jones argued in her closing statement that "what this case is about is the evidence" -- that there was not enough of it to convict Ray. With the defense's final witness, Ray's former employer Glen Stieffenhofer of Penn Jersey Window Cleaning and Maintenance, Jones sought to show that the man in the Penn Tower security video was not Ray. "I specifically said to them, 'I cannot say that it is him and I cannot say that it's not him,' " testified Stiffenhofer, recalling how police showed him still photos from the videotape. Stiffenhofer also testified that the police aggravated him by repeatedly attempting to coerce his response, saying, "You know it's him, why don't you just say it's him?" When asked of his confidence in the police's work, Privitera said they "did a superb job." Daily Pennsylvanian staff writer Sabrina Gleizer contributed to this article.

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