GREENFIELD — Mark Warren’s supporters let out gasps of relief when the verdict was said aloud.
“Not guilty,” the judge read off of a piece of paper. A few moments later, he glanced over at Warren and added, “You’re free to go.”
A jury of 12 Hancock County residents found Warren, 41, of Greenfield, not guilty of rape following a three-day trial in Hancock Circuit Court.
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The panel delivered its verdict after nearly three hours of deliberating Thursday, before a courtroom packed with friends and family members of both the defendant and the woman who had accused him.
Warren faced a Level 3 felony count, which carries a penalty of up to 16 years in prison.
A woman came forward in January 2017 and told police she woke up in the middle of the night to Warren forcing himself on her, according to testimony at trial. The woman admitted she’d been drinking heavily that night — she was out celebrating her birthday with friends — and her memories of what happened were fragmented.
Prosecutors argued the woman was too intoxicated to consent to any sexual behavior; but Warren, who denies the allegations, says the woman made the report to police only because she was embarrassed by what happened.
Warren’s attorney, Bryan Williams of Anderson, called the woman’s actions after waking up to Warren in her home “a shame spiral.”
Friends had seen Warren follow the woman into her home, Williams said; one even teased her about it via text message the next day. Surely it made her uncomfortable, he said.
“A couple of drunk adults made bad decisions, and we’re here to sort it all out,” Williams told the jury, while asking them to find his client not guilty.
Warren is in an employee of the City of Greenfield; and because of the case’s connection to local government, Hancock County prosecutors asked that a special prosecutor be appointed to oversee the case.
Madison County deputy prosecutors Mary Hutchison and Megan Bolt worked with local police and presented their evidence on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Thursday, they took turns delivering the state’s closing argument, making one last appeal to the panel to find Warren guilty.
Indiana law states a person cannot consent to sex if they’re unconscious or asleep, Bolt told the jury. And according to the woman’s testimony, she’d been asleep and woke up to the assault, Bolt said.
The woman told the jury on the first day of trial she doesn’t remember inviting Warren into her home; but she recalls seeing him in her living room after a friend drove her home from a bar. She believed at the time he was just checking to make sure she made it inside OK, according to her testimony.
The woman told the jury she woke up to Warren assaulting her. She told the man to stop, and he did; and she passed out again immediately, she testified. He was still there when she woke up the next morning, she told the jury.
Warren didn’t testify during the trial. But the video of his interview with a Fortville Police Department detective showed him telling the officer that he felt the invitation to come to the woman’s home was implied.
He told police he’d kissed the woman and denied having sex with her. His DNA was found on private parts of her body, according to testimony.
Warren told different stories to friends in the days that followed, testimony revealed: He sent a text to one friend saying he planned to have sex with the woman; he said to another friend he had engaged in sex acts with the woman; and said to a third person that he’d only slept on the woman’s couch.
It was childish of Warren to have behaved that way, to have told tales or bragged, Williams admitted of his client. The woman needed to take responsible for her actions, too, Williams said.
“They both should have acted better,” he said.
But prosecutors tried to convince the jury that the woman’s level of intoxication shouldn’t be held against her.
“The law protects victims, even when they make themselves vulnerable,” Bolt said. “When you go on vacation, forget to lock the front door and someone breaks in … the law still protects you.”
Hutchison echoed the same sentiment to the jury a few minutes later.
“You don’t get to say, ‘Oh, I think she drank too much, so she doesn’t deserve justice,’” she said.