Rural Joplin man charged with sexual assault of second victim this month
May 23—More sexual assault and kidnapping charges were filed Thursday on a rural Joplin man with respect to a second victim turned up in an investigation by the Jasper County Sheriff's Department.
Four counts of first-degree rape, two counts of first-degree sodomy and single counts of kidnapping and second-degree domestic assault were filed on Michael D. Roland, 38, in Jasper County Circuit Court.
Roland has been in custody at the Jasper County Jail since May 15 on charges that he physically and sexually assaulted, and held against his will, a 19-year-old Kansas man May 7-8.
The counts added on Thursday pertain to a 32-year-old woman he purportedly took to his residence May 9 and held her there against her will through May 14. She told sheriff's investigators that Roland made her smoke a substance that blurred her vision and made her feel exceptionally tired, according to a probable-cause affidavit. She said he ordered her to take off her clothes or he would kill her and repeatedly slapped her chest to force her to comply.
According to the affidavit, she could recall "at least four different occasions" over the five-day period when he raped her. She told investigators that whenever she tried to tell him to stop, he would tell her not to say that and slap or hit her with his fists.
He also purportedly choked her with his hands, threatened to strangle her with an extension cord and asked her how she wished to die. The sodomy charges added Thursday pertain to other acts of sexual assault he allegedly forced on her with threats to harm her if she resisted.
According to the affidavit, she told a detective regarding her inability to get away from him: "When someone has sexually assaulted you, you feel like your life is in their hands. You feel weak. You're not strong-minded at all."
The affidavit states that bruises and marks on her hands, knees, face, chest and legs were noted and photographed during a medical exam.
The woman acknowledged to investigators that she initially met Roland at Schifferdecker Park in Joplin and that on or about April 25 they had engaged in consensual sexual intercourse.
Under questioning about her allegations on May 15, Roland purportedly at first denied even knowing her and claimed instead that he'd had consensual sex with a woman the previous weekend.
His bond was set at $50,000 when first arrested on the charges involving the 19-year-old male victim. No bond has been set in the case involving the female victim.
Roland had been scheduled for a preliminary hearing Thursday on a domestic assault charge filed in February with respect to a 28-year-old woman people reported seeing walking down the middle of a road wearing pajama bottoms and a tank top and almost being struck by vehicles.
That woman told deputies that Roland had accused her of taking his cellphone and hit her with his fists and "shanked" her with a food thermometer. But the felony domestic assault charge in that case was dismissed when she failed to show up to testify against him at the hearing Thursday.
