Monticello Live

John Jenkins, age 22 of Crossett, was found not guilty of rape by a Drew County jury, after only 5 minutes of deliberation, Tuesday afternoon.

Testimony from the prosecution and the defense agreed,  that after a party in Crossett on December 26, 2009, the suspect, the victim and friends of both traveled to Monticello, to an apartment where the victim lived with her roommate.  Sometime around midnight, the victim went to bed, leaving friends inside the apartment.

Sometime later the suspect reportedly knocked on the victim’s bedroom door and asked for cover.

Both parties agree that he spent the night in her bed, but disagree  and on whether the acts that took place the next morning around 8:45 were consensual or rape.

Multiple witnesses were called during trial, which took around 6 hours.

The 19 year old victims told the jury that she was “naive” and too trusting in friends of her friends.

Earlier this month, an area teacher was cleared of charges, which were alleged by a student, and late last month, another Drew County man was found not guilty of similar claims, after both the victim and suspect had spent the night at his residence, after leaving a deer camp, where drug and alcohol use were taking place.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 27th, 2010 at 12:18 pm and is filed under Police /Legal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.