SEATTLE—A few too many beers might have been Jonathan Edwards’excuse for why he raped 21-year-old Seattle resident Juliet Swanson in the bathroom of a local tavern, but jurors were not believing it. And certainly they did not believe his bizarre theory that the Masons had conspired to lower women’s waistlines in order for males to enjoin with them anally.

Targy’s Tavern, a watering hole popular with college kids and blue-collar workers alike, is located two blocks from where Edwards,21, shares a basement apartment with four other University of Washington students. Sources say that he is a regular client at Targy’s since turning 21 last year and has never shown a propensity toward violence. Yet recently, Swanson alleged, Edwards followed her into the women’s restroom and anally raped her.

Targy’s bartender Elisa Meyers, 49, says that Edwards and Swanson began flirting at the bar after Edwards rescued her from a brash group of plumbers who were making remarks about Swanson’s pant line. “The Edwards kid had been drinking with Sammy Donaldson from Sammy’s Plumbing when the gal comes in the bar,” Meyers said. “She was dressed all sexy, the way the girls do today with their g-string underwear showing and stuff. Then Sammy started to tease the gal about her ‘plumber’s smile.’”

Meyers said that Edwards kindly asked Donaldson to cease making disrespectful remarks about Swanson, an act that allowed Edwards to ‘move in’ on Swanson and begin a conversation.

Edwards claimed the pair mutually went into the bathroom and that Swanson showed “definite signals” that she wanted sex. “It was not rape, only a misunderstanding,” Edwards told the court. “I was drunk and mistakenly assumed the fact she was wearing her jeans in such a fashion was a signal that she needed to instantly partake in anal love.”

Swanson admitted that she was flirting with Edwards at the bar and kissed him in the women’s restroom, but that a single kiss coupled with the way she was wearing her pants certainly did not grant a man the right to pull them down and penetrate her sexually.

The court agreed, sentencing Edwards to two years in the King County Correctional Facility for his actions, despite further statements he made on the stand about how the new female fashion of a lowered waistline was a Masonic conspiracy. Although he was allowed to state his bizarre thesis, prosecuting attorney Amyl Aaronson retorted that “a conspiracy to erode social values to the point where a one-world totalitarian technocratic government can come into power and rule mankind with its own machines is a rather weak excuse for rape.”