Teen charge in beating, raping of girlfriend-Madison, WI

A Madison teenager has been charged with beating and raping his girlfriend in a five-hour attack in his apartment on North Street, after which the girl told Madison Police detectives she thought she was going to be beaten to death.

Mitchell G. Lambert, 17, was charged Tuesday with two counts of sexual assault, false imprisonment, disorderly conduct and two counts of battery for the assault which allegedly took place on March 23, and a separate count of battery for allegedly beating the victim on March 16 in the same apartment. Lambert was originally charged with disorderly conduct in the case but when the victim told detectives of the sexual assault the first complaint issued against Lambert was dismissed and he was charge in a second complaint filed Tuesday with the sexual assaults and additional counts.

The 16-year-old girl was able to get away from Lambert as the two were walking down North Street after the March 23 beatings, when she said she was going to approach a man who was standing outside a home on North Street and ask him for a cigarette. Instead the victim told the man she had been beaten by her boyfriend and the man took her into the home and called police. Lambert, meanwhile, was beating on the door with a 12-inch copper pipe, the complaint says, until police arrived and arrested him.

When detectives talked to the girl again in April she told them of the horrific beating she received on March 23 and the rapes she endured under threats that she said Lambert made. She told detectives that Lambert "repeatedly punched her with clenched fists with a lighter in his had, striking her extremely hard," the complaint says. She said Lambert hit her "all over my body," the complaint says, including in the face, head and back.

Lambert kept the victim on a bench in the basement and each time she told him she wanted to leave and would get up from the bench he would punch her in the head. After several such incidents Lambert took his clothes off and ordered the girl to perform a sex act on him, punching her when she at first refused to comply, the complaint says.

The victim later told detectives that "she was fearful the defendant was going to beat her to death," so she did what he asked. Later he removed her clothes and forced her back onto the bench and raped her, the girl told detectives.

At some point during the five hours, Lambert also bit the girl's thigh hard enough to leave bite marks, and when she sought refuge as they were walking to get some food, the girl had three large lumps on her face from the beatings, police said. The girl said Lambert had been either drinking heavily or using drugs before the attacks, both on March 16 and March 23. Police said they smelled a strong odor of intoxicants on Lambert when he was arrested on March 23.