Coleman may be force-fed

With legal avenues of appeal narrowing, convicted rapist and prison inmate William B. Coleman has launched a hunger strike, subsisting on little morethan occasional drinks of juice or milk, water and ice chips.
Whether his claim of innocence has merit is debatable, but one thing is certain: He has the attention of prison staff, alarmed at his loss of 53 pounds since September.
In a phone interview Thursday, Coleman, a native of Liverpool, England, and the former women's soccer coach at Central Connecticut State University, said although he doesn't necessarily want to die, he doesn't want the state to interfere with his protest.

Though a jury and several judges have disagreed, Coleman maintains that his ex-wife lied and said he raped her because she wanted to prevent him from getting custody of their two sons. She could not be reached for comment for this story.
There was no physical evidence presented by prosecutors in the case against Coleman. In one account, Coleman's ex-wife reported that, culminating a week of abuse, Coleman sodomized her in her house on Oct. 3. But she had showered after the incident, she reported the crime Oct. 4, and there was no mention of a rape kit in an arrest warrant affidavit.