by BRAD ROLLINS
A Hays County jury has acquitted a former Lehman High School student accused along with four classmates of sexually assaulting two teenage girls while they were unconscious at a party nearly three years ago.
Chad Miles, 20, was found not guilty of sexual assault on Oct. 8 after a week-long trial during which his former co-defendants, Jesse Primeau and Ricardo Carrillo, testified for the state.
The three young men were all 17 years old in November 2008 when prosecutors say they joined in what was characterized at the time of their indictment, as the drugging and gang rape of two teenage girls, both of whom were 14 at the time.
“The state presented as good a case as they could but, even if you believe that people made bad choices, the question is whether or not a sexual assault occured. The jury said it did not,” said Miles’ attorney, David Watts of San Marcos. “The girls involved made some bad choices. The boys made some bad choices [but] teenagers are kind of prone to making bad choices.”
Prosecutors dropped a conspiracy charge against Miles after both the defense and state had presented their cases but before the jury began deliberation.
The defense sought to show that the girls could not have been under the influence of common date rape drugs by playing tape recordings of interviews in which they recalled some of the night’s events.
In a date rape case, victims have “zero recollection of what occurred but the information that came out in evidence was that the girls knew what was going on,” Watts said.
Carrillo previously pled guilty to a charge of sexual assault as part of a plea agreement in which he received 10 years probation and the possibility of deferred adjudication; an indecency with a child charge against Primeau was dropped in exchange for an agreement to cooperate in the investigation and prosecution. Sexual assault charges are still pending against two other men who were younger than 17 at the time of their indictment in May 2008.
District Attorney Sherri Tibbe declined to discuss the the acquittal, saying in a brief written statement, “There are still matters pending regarding this incident, so we are unable to comment.”
Had he been convicted of second-degree felony sexual assault, Miles, now a university student in Temple, would have faced a possible prison sentence of two to 20 years.
