Three Accuse ‘Fantasy Man’ Lover of Rape : Nashville: Suspect’s ploy involved sexy phone calls in which he persuaded women to don blindfolds and unlock their doors. They say they erroneously thought he was their boyfriend; he says the sex was consensual.

The phone rings late at night. In a sexy whisper, a man persuades a woman to unlock her door, undress, put on a blindfold and wait for him in bed.

At least three women did so, thinking he was their boyfriend, and had sex with the so-called Fantasy Man--one woman twice a week for two months.

Now they want police to charge Raymond Mitchell III with rape.

The 45-year-old businessman says he was just fulfilling the women’s fantasies and the sex was consensual.

Police aren’t sure what to do. Investigators are looking at whether Mitchell claimed to be someone else, which could constitute rape by fraud.

Fantasy Man has become the talk of Nashville. And tabloid television has been calling.

“My callers can’t believe how incredibly stupid, gullible and horny women can be,” said WLAC talk radio host Dave Macy.

But Connie Vaupel, who got Mitchell, a co-worker, charged with attempted rape in 1989, defended the alleged victims.

“These are not stupid women,” she said. “They were convinced of something that was not true. He had enough information beforehand to convince them. Believe me, this guy is slick.”

Mitchell, who is married and has two children, isn’t talking with reporters but has talked to police, who say he has cooperated fully.

In the Vaupel case, a plea bargain was accepted and Mitchell’s record was wiped clean after he completed two years on probation.

No decision has been made whether to present the current case to a grand jury, said Rosemary Sexton, the Davidson County assistant district attorney. She declined to discuss it further.

Meanwhile, newspaper reports of Fantasy Man have brought new claims from women who said they, too, received calls from Mitchell. Police said there were at least three such complaints, but they won’t give any details.

David L. Raybin, a former prosecutor turned defense attorney, said: “The government is going to have a very heavy burden to carry, to establish that the women were deceived.”

Raybin serves on the Tennessee Sentencing Commission, which in 1989 updated an 1870 criminal code on “fictitious husband rape” and came up with Tennessee’s current rape-by-fraud statute.

About 40 states have similar laws, and prosecutors have won rape-by-fraud cases across the country, Raybin said.

Raybin said the law may have been broken if Mitchell gave false names, claiming to be the women’s boyfriends. But prosecutors may decide they don’t have a case if he told the women, “I’m whoever you think I am,” Raybin said.

Mitchell’s accusers are:

* A 26-year-old woman who realized that Fantasy Man wasn’t her boyfriend as soon as he touched her. She feared he would hurt her if she resisted.

* A woman in her mid-30s who thought Fantasy Man was a man from Texas she had met a week before. She had sex with Fantasy Man twice before calling the Texan and realizing the truth.

* A woman in her early 20s who said she had sex with Fantasy Man twice a week for two months because she believed he was her boyfriend. She realized the truth when her blindfold slipped.

Vaupel, 31, said in her case an early morning caller asked if she had seen the movie “9 1/2 Weeks.”

“He told me, ‘There’s a scene where this woman’s fantasy is being fulfilled and she’s blindfolded,’ ” Vaupel said. “He wanted to come over and he wanted me to be doing what she was doing in the movie.”

Vaupel called police after watching from her balcony as Mitchell drove up, slipped a ski mask over his head and tried to enter her apartment.

Mitchell’s current attorney, C. Edward Fowlkes, said he didn’t represent the man then and doesn’t know what happened.