Multnomah County prosecutors Tuesday announced an indictment bringing a dozen charges against a year-old man who they say raped a woman he met on Tinder on Rocky Butte, threatened to tie her up with duct tape and forced her to perform sex acts in exchange for money.
Mitchell Beckwith was arrested by Gresham police Nov. He was also charged with misdemeanor strangulation. Beckwith pleaded not guilty to all charges in a court appearance Tuesday. Beckwith pleaded guilty in to an identity theft charge in Clackamas County and he faced a warrant for his arrest for violating terms of his probation for that crime, court records show.
He was a basketball standout at Marshall High School a decade ago. Just last year he briefly attended New Hope Christian College , where he was expected to play basketball. The college has since removed that webpage. Gresham officers responded to a report of a disturbance at an apartment complex just after midnight Nov.
When they arrived, they found a distraught woman who reported that she had been raped by a man she met on the Tinder dating application roughly two days earlier. Officers immediately sent the woman to a Gresham hospital for evaluation. The woman told police Beckwith picked her up from her apartment Nov. Once at the picturesque landmark, Beckwith started touching her without her consent, she told police. According to the affidavit, the woman said she began screaming, but Beckwith threatened her and then pulled a roll of duct tape out from underneath his car seat.
He also allegedly had his pants pulled down at that time, records show. The woman told police Beckwith then raped her and forced her to perform oral sex multiple times as he drove around town.
