The retrial of a Dundalk man accused of raping a patient at the Baltimore Washington Medical Center in Glen Burnie is scheduled to begin in late March, exactly five months after a mistrial was declared.

Damien Taylor, 41, will return to Anne Arundel Circuit Court in January for a motion hearing, but will not go to trial again until March 25, according to the Maryland Judiciary.

Opening arguments had been made and the first witnesses called in Taylor’s case in late October. However, after new video evidence emerged from the hospital showing a different perspective of what led to the alleged assault, Anne Arundel Circuit Judge Robert Thompson pushed past the objections of both sides and declared a mistrial.

“Yesterday’s declaration of a mistrial was a miscarriage of justice,” public defender Bridget Elis said shortly after Thompson’s decision. “I do not want to comment on any evidence in the case and add to misinformation that is in the public domain, which could further taint Mr. Taylor’s ability to receive a fair trial.”

Elis, who did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday, is representing Taylor alongside public defender Tovia Edmonds.

Taylor has been held by authorities since February, when a sexual assault was reported near the lobby of the Glen Burnie hospital. According to charging documents, a police officer working at the Baltimore Washington Medical Center found Taylor having sex with a patient “behind a privacy vanity.”

Taylor’s defense team looked to prove that he and the 28-year-old woman had been engaged in consensual sex, which was preceded by a conversation in the hospital’s waiting room. While the prosecution acknowledged a “very brief” interaction between the two, Assistant State’s Attorney Sean Fox said Taylor, who does not work at the medical center, took advantage of a woman dazed from her prescription medication.

Though the new footage was not played in court, Elis described the video evidence as “exculpatory,” noting the patient was standing and walking around the hospital lobby before meeting the defendant, contradicting the testimony of a middle school teacher who first alerted authorities to Taylor.

In an intensive line of questioning, the defense scrutinized the teacher’s accounts of what happened Feb. 26. The woman told the jury she had gone to the Baltimore Washington Medical Center to seek help for her daughter. Inside the lobby, she said she sat near the alleged victim, who was in a wheelchair, and saw her “behaving oddly” with “exaggerated movements.” Several hours later, she said she saw a man wheel her away.

“I was very concerned … I felt like something was wrong,” the teacher said on the stand.

During cross-examination, the teacher told Edmonds she wasn’t worried about the patient’s safety until she was taken away. Edmonds noted that when reporting Taylor to authorities, the teacher described him as a “large, African American male,” even though Taylor was both shorter and smaller than her. Additionally, the teacher’s testimony showed that while she had not seen Taylor and the woman speak to one another, her daughter had.

Other witnesses included an EMT who transported the alleged victim to the hospital and a forensic nurse who examined her. Corroborating the police’s observations in charging documents, both witnesses described the woman’s demeanor as “slow” — to which the defense asked if they knew how the woman regularly behaved. Both said they did not.

Fox said in his opening arguments that the patient was prepared to testify to her state of being and mental health struggles, though the judge declared a mistrial before that could happen.

The Capital Gazette does not identify victims of sexual abuse without their consent.

It was not clear during the October proceedings why investigators had not reviewed, received or shared the hospital videos with prosecutors. Elis said reports from the Baltimore Washington Medical Center acknowledged their existence and therefore placed them in the “purview” of the state.

Fox said while the three videos appeared on a list, police and prosecutors are limited to whatever evidence is shared with them following a subpoena.

During a recess, attorneys from both sides were given the opportunity to review the footage, later telling Thompson they wanted to move forward with the case. The judge, however, said the significance of the new videos required further consideration and that the trial was not ready to proceed.

Elis told the judge the mistrial was “very disappointing for the defense.”

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