GREENFIELD — A girl who accused her neighbor of fondling her during a summertime slumber party sat on the witness stand for more than two hours Monday, testifying in the first day of the man’s trial about the harm she says she suffered.
Ryan White, 32, of New Palestine, faces a single Level 4 felony count of child molesting, and he’s appearing before a jury this week in Hancock County Superior Court 1.
Prosecutors began presenting their evidence in the case midday Monday, trying to convince the 12-member panel that White abused the girl a year ago while she was staying the night at his home.
Among the first witnesses called in the case was the young victim, who told the jury the man touched her inappropriately and forced her to touch him while she and a few other children were staying at his home in July 2017.
But White’s defense attorney, Nicole Zelin of Greenfield, called the girl’s story “a fabrication,” and she pointed out inconsistencies, particularly the differences in comments she made in a May deposition — a sworn, out-of-court statement — and what she said throughout Monday’s testimony.
White was a next-door-neighbor and friend of the girl’s parents; but they suffered a falling out around the time the girl alleges the inappropriate behavior occurred, Zelin told the jury. She suggested the girl made up the story to get attention from her parents or fuel the rift between them and White.
Cathy Wilson, the deputy prosecutor presenting the state’s case, said the girl has no reason to lie.
She admits the child can’t recall the exact date or everything that led up to or followed the misbehavior — “This is not something she went home and wrote on her calendar,” Wilson remarked during her opening statement — but the child’s description of the defendant’s behavior has always stayed the same.
The girl recounted those details for the jury Monday.
She told the panel the abuse occurred following a party in early July 2017. She believed the party was to celebrate the Fourth of July, but that it did not take place on the actual holiday.
She visited White’s home right after the gathering, the girl testified.
She told the jury she fell asleep on a couch in White’s living room while watching a movie with her siblings, she said.
At one point during the night, she woke up to White touching her inappropriately, she told the jury. The man also grabbed her hand and forced her to touch him, she said.
She pretended to be asleep while White harmed her, only opening her eyes briefly two or three times and making sure he didn’t see her, she said.
When he finally left the living room, she sat awake crying, she said. Eventually she fell back to sleep.
She didn’t tell anyone what happened until the following September during a conversation with her mother, she said. She also confided the abuse to a therapist the same day; and the therapist called police, she said.
The girl’s mother and therapist also testified Monday, though the stories they told the jury about the girl’s disclosure were conflicting — a point Zelin questioned during cross examination.
The girl’s mother said she spoke with the child on an evening in September, which is when the girl first confided about the abuse. The mother said she asked a therapist who had already been working with the family to come to the home to speak with the girl that same night. The therapist returned the next morning for another visit, after which the police were called.
The therapist, however, testified that all occurred in one day, and she contacted police immediately as required by law. Sheriff’s deputies arrived at the home around 10 a.m.
The felony count White faces carries a penalty of two to 12 years in prison.
He faces similar allegations in a second case — one filed in Hancock Circuit Court in February. A different girl came forward to accuse White of touching her inappropriately, also in July 2017. That case is pending, with a tentative jury trial date set for December.
White denies the allegations in both cases.