Saturday, August 30, 2003
School officials did not say whether he will return to the team.
BELLEFONTE, Pa. (AP) -- Anwar Phillips is back on campus, acquitted by a jury of sexual assault charges. Whether he will return to the Penn State football team is still unknown.
A Centre County jury deliberated about three hours Tuesday before returning innocent verdicts on charges of sexual assault and aggravated indecent assault. Each charge could have carried a possible 10-year prison sentence and $25,000 fine.
Phillips shook his head silently as the verdict was read, then wept in the courtroom with his mother, Sharon Phillips, who was up from Germantown, Md., for the trial. They refused to speak with reporters as they left the courthouse.
Opinion
"Obviously the family and everyone involved in this case is very, very pleased," defense attorney Tony DeBoef said. "The truth came out when he had his day in court."
District Attorney Ray Gricar said he was "very surprised and disappointed, especially for the victim. I thought it was a very solid case, and I expected a guilty (verdict)."
In his closing argument Tuesday morning, DeBoef said the woman Phillips was accused of assaulting consented to sex, but later regretted the decision, perhaps out of concern about pregnancy. An examination at the university health service showed no physical signs of an assault.
"Obviously, (the woman) is upset. There is no dispute about that," DeBoef said. "On behalf of the defendant, I'm going to offer to you that she was upset after this happened -- not during, not prior to."
With conflicting stories from Phillips and his accuser about what happened the morning of Nov. 12, jurors said that prosecutors didn't do enough to prove that the sex was not consensual.
"Every time she told him to stop, they ended up on the bed cuddling again," juror Louise Gingher said.
"She told him to stop, and then she kissed him," juror Tara Brown said.
Phillips was accused of forcing sex on the woman, an acquaintance, in her on-campus apartment. In December, he was expelled from the university for two semesters -- the summer session counts as a semester -- and Phillips is enrolled in classes fall classes. But Penn State coach Joe Paterno has refused to discuss the case, and sports information director Jeff Nelson said the athletic department would neither comment on the verdict nor say whether Phillips would rejoin the team.