43
Defendant in rape case acquitted
Prosecution failed due to lack of evidence, the jury forewoman said.
YOUNGSTOWN — The trial of Keith Nunez was a he-said, she-said case, with no other eyewitness testimony as to what occurred, according to the forewoman of the jury that acquitted him of raping a 14-year-old girl.
“We did not feel that the prosecution gave us enough evidence,” to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt on either of the two rape counts lodged against Nunez, said Brenda Holt of Poland.
The jury of seven women and five men rendered its verdict in the trial of Nunez, 19, of Porter Avenue, Campbell, Wednesday afternoon after deliberating a little more than an hour.
The three-day trial was conducted by Judge Timothy E. Franken of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
“They could have had more people testify in order to give us more information,” Holt said.
“We did not feel as though the people that were present in the room, who could have brought forward more information, were brought forward for us to hear testimony, so it was her word against his,” Holt said, referring to the accuser and Nunez. “We had nothing from a doctor,” she added.
Natasha K. Frenchko, assistant county prosecutor, told the jurors during the trial that the accuser was an overnight guest in the Campbell apartment of one of her female contemporaries, while three young men, including Nunez, were also guests on Dec. 9, 2006, when the alleged crimes occurred.
Nunez’s lawyer, David Engler, told jurors the father of the accuser’s friend emerged from a bedroom, saw Nunez having intercourse with the accuser, and ordered Nunez and his co-defendant, Ronald Harrison, who was later shot to death in an unrelated incident, to leave.
Neither the father of the accuser’s friend nor the third young man present testified in Nunez’s trial. The jurors were not told of Harrison’s death during the trial.
Frenchko declined to comment about the case after the verdict was rendered, except to thank the jury for its service and attentiveness.
Frenchko told the jury that Nunez took sexual advantage of the accuser while she was significantly impaired from drinking rum and smoking marijuana.
But Engler said the sex was consensual and that the evidence didn’t show that his client knew or had reason to know that the girl was substantially impaired.
After the verdict was rendered, Engler said there were many inconsistencies in the accuser’s testimony, and Engler noted that no blood test results showing the levels of alcohol or marijuana in the accuser’s system were presented in the trial.
If he had been convicted, Nunez would have faced three to 10 years in prison on each rape count.
Harrison, of Bright Avenue, Campbell, who was indicted on the same two rape counts, was shot to death last December at age 19 by a Campbell resident who said Harrison tried to rob him at his home, and the rape charges against Harrison were dismissed after his death.
Police found Harrison lying in the street outside the Porter Avenue residence, bleeding from his mouth, with a nylon stocking cap over his head and face and a pellet gun nearby. The man who shot Harrison was not charged with any crime.
Although his client was acquitted of the rape charges, Engler observed that the case should send a message to young people that intoxicants and sexual activity are a potentially dangerous combination.