The woman was just beginning her work day at a Kaiser Permanente complex near East 20th Avenue and Downing Street in Denver when she was accosted and sexually assaulted by a man hiding in a bathroom stall.

It was about 8:30 a.m. She said she had just entered the restroom to wash her hands when he burst out of a bathroom stall, grabbed her arm and forced her into the stall, where he kissed her, groped her and sexually assaulted her.

"He put his hand over my mouth," the 21-year-old woman testified Tuesday in Denver District Court, where Luther Hill is on trial on charges of sexual assault and kidnapping on Aug. 3, 2006. "He told me if I screamed, he would kill me."

He repeated his threats as two women entered and left the public restroom, she said. "I didn't want to die. I was terrified," she said.

She said she begged him not to rape her, telling him that she was engaged.

"I was backing up as far as I could," she said. "I didn't want to be near him. I was pleading, 'Please don't rape me. Please.' I couldn't bear to tell my fiance that I was raped. He said he wouldn't."

After the assault, she said he took a glass pipe out of his pants and began to smoke some small balls that had been on top of the toilet paper dispenser, that she mistook for wadded up pieces of paper. He asked her to smoke crack with him, but she declined.

She said she recognized the same "foul" odor that she smelled when she first came into the restroom.

"He said he would let me leave if I promised not to tell. I promised not to tell."

Her attacker left and she ran to another bathroom where she scrubbed herself with paper towels and soap.

The woman said she didn't tell police at first that the man had assaulted her. "I didn't want my dad and my fiance to know," she said. "It would have hurt them."

Shown a photo lineup by police, she picked Luther Hill, saying she was "positive" he was the man.

She described her attacker as having a distinctive white patch in his black hair, which Hill has.

But defense attorneys say the woman is mistaken.

Defense attorney Kate Dulitzky said the woman identified her attacker as being in his 20s, while Hill is 42. She also failed to mention tattoos on his chest, although she said the attacker's shirt was unbuttoned during the assault. And she didn't mention a distinctive scar on his forehead in her first police interview, Dulitzky said.

Hill may have a patch of white hair like her attacker, but he was home asleep in bed with his wife on the morning of Aug. 3, she told the jury in opening statements.

"Luther Hill is not guilty of any of the these charges," she said. "He was at his mom's house with his wife when this happened."

But prosecutor Alfredo Hernandez said that Hill told police who arrested him, "I was going to turn myself in. I'm tired. I've got a bad drug problem and sometimes I find myself in bad places."

lindsays@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5181