Latrobe man charged with raping unconscious woman at New Year's Eve party

A Latrobe man was arraigned Tuesday on charges of raping and sexually assaulting an unconscious woman at a New Year’s Eve party in Hempfield, state police said.

Hunter J. Hoyle, 20, declined to comment as he was led from District Judge Mark Mansour’s office to be transported to the county jail.

According to the complaint, the woman and Hoyle attended a Dec. 31 party on Hurst Road, where, she said, Hoyle “was hitting and hugging on all of the girls there.”

The woman said she was tired from working an afternoon shift and later consuming vodka, so she decided to rest in a spare bedroom about 2 a.m., Trooper Scott Kemerer reported in court documents. The woman said she was asleep but intermittently recalled feeling pain, hearing Hoyle speaking to her and then hearing loud knocks on the door.

When she awoke at 9 a.m., she said she was sore, her shorts were inside out and “when she went to the bathroom, she noticed something wasn’t right,” Kemerer reported.

She was treated that day at Excela Health Westmoreland Hospital in Greensburg.

The woman told investigators “she did not consent to this,” court papers said.

A friend of the accuser told police she also noticed “Hoyle hitting on every girl at the party,” and on one occasion instructed Hoyle to leave the room where her friend was sleeping.

“(Hoyle) claimed he needed to put his jacket on,” Kemerer wrote.

“Twenty minutes later, she checked the door again and found it to be locked,” Kemerer said.

Others at the party began knocking on the door, and they said Hoyle answered “and kept telling them to hold on,” witnesses told troopers.

When Hoyle opened the door, witnesses told police, he was “pulling up his pants and buckling them,” according to the complaint.

In an interview last week, Kemerer said Hoyle admitted to raping the woman.

Mansour ordered Hoyle held in the county jail on $100,000 bond. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Jan. 31.