GREENFIELD — Twelve Hancock County residents found a New Palestine man facing an accusation of child molest not guilty of the crime.
After nearly two hours of deliberating Aug. 28, the jury reached its verdict, bringing Ryan White’s two-day trial to an end. The 32-year-old faced a single Level 4 felony count — a charge carrying a penalty of up to 12 years in prison — and after the decision was announced, tears flowed from his eyes as he buried his face in his mother’s shoulder.
White denied the allegations that were brought forward in September 2017 by an underage neighbor. He took to the witness stand in his own defense Aug. 28, telling the jury point blank that he’d never touched the girl and never forced her to touch him, as she’d reported.
The girl told police White fondled her during a summertime slumber party at his house in July 2017. She repeated the allegations Monday as she testified during the first day of the proceedings.
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, she said.
White’s defense attorney, Nicole Zelin of Greenfield, worked throughout the proceedings to cast doubt on the girl’s story. She called it a fabrication and repeated that assertion Tuesday during her closing argument.
Facts in the case — such as what day the abuse supposedly occurred, the events leading up to and following it and who might have been in the home at the time — didn’t match up with what the girl was saying, Zelin said.
She pointed out inconsistencies, particularly the differences in comments the girl made in a May deposition — a sworn, out-of-court statement — and what she said during the trial. She suggested the girl made up the story to get attention from her parents or fuel the rift between her parents and White.
Cathy Wilson, the deputy prosecutor presenting the state’s case, said those sorts of details didn’t matter. Times and dates aren’t of the essence when it comes to allegations of child molest, she told the jury.
What matters is whether they believe the girl, Wilson said. She pointed to a moment during Monday’s proceedings when the girl became caught up in emotion at the door to the courtroom, crying as she was lead in to testify.
Those were true emotions, Wilson said; and the girl had no motive to lie.
White was a trusted friend of the girl’s family, and that trust was violated, Wilson said. There was no physical evidence and no witnesses, but that’s common in child molest cases, she said.
“There is no DNA; there is no video,” Wilson told the jury. “That’s not how these crimes happen.”
Wilson called three witnesses Tuesday before resting the state’s case: the sheriff’s department detective who handled the investigation; the defendant’s former employer; and the victim’s older sister.
In a victory for the defense, the victim’s older sister was ordered by a judge not to testify.
The sister was sworn in; but following an objection from Zelin, a few minutes of argument and a brief out-of-court interview between the sister, Zelin and Wilson, she left the courtroom without answering any questions.
Prosecutors told the judge, away from the jury, they planned to question the teenage girl about some text messages she’d received from White that were considered inappropriate and sexual in nature.
On the witness stand, White’s former boss told the jury about a conversation he once had with White, in which White confided that he was attracted to younger-looking women. White assured the man that he was “not a pervert” and any woman he dated “had to be over 18,” the man testified.
Zelin called a total of seven witnesses — mostly White’s friends and family — while presenting White’s defense. The defendant took the stand as the case’s final witness.
Zelin asked White only four questions, including whether or not he’d ever touched his accuser or had the girl touch him.
He replied “no” to both inquiries.
Records show White faces a child molest charge in a second case — one filed in Hancock Circuit Court earlier this year. Though the cases are unrelated, the allegations are similar, according to court documents: 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.