Yellowknife (June 30/03) - She awoke one night last summer to find Rodney Kangegana on top of her, a teenaged girl told a Supreme Court jury last Tuesday.

The jury convicted the 32-year-old man of the June 16, 2002 sexual assault last week and Justice Virginia Schuler sentenced him to four years in prison.

It was Kangeganas second trial for the same crime. In February, a jury was unable to reach a unanimous decision.

The girl, now 16, testified she began to pass out at a Yellowknife home after two days of binge drinking.

Two women she knew took her upstairs and put her in bed fully clothed.

She woke up, without pants and underwear, and the man was on top of her, holding himself up with his arms, she said.

He was having sex with me while I was passed out, she said.

The girl said she threw him off of her and kicked him in the face, knocking him to the floor.

She called her mother in Fort Good Hope and then called police, who arrested the man.

She went to the hospital the next day to visit a friend, but was not examined because she wasnt sure if she wanted to press charges and testify in court.

"I didn't want to go through what Im going through right now."

The teenager asked to give a statement to police one week after the assault when she was in the drunk tank.

She acknowledged having a drinking problem.

The man, originally from Tuktoyaktuk, has three convictions for violent crimes on his record, including a sexual assault in 1997.

Justice Schuler said it was not completely clear from the girls testimony whether the man was actually having intercourse with her when she woke up, or if she assumed that he did.

During the trial, Schuler instructed the jury that taking off the girls clothes also constitutes a sexual assault.

Schuler said the teenaged victim has problems.

But the adults in her life should help her, not make her problems worse, she said.