By KENNETH HART - The Independent
CATLETTSBURG
May 13, 2008 11:55 pm
—
Questions were raised on the second day of Vincent Jones’ sodomy trial about whether he and his accuser were even in the same room together on the day that Jones is alleged to have forced himself upon her sexually.
Special prosecutor Gary Conn produced a disciplinary referral slip showing that Jones’ alleged victim, a then-17-year-old female student at Boyd County High School, was ordered by school Administrator John Stevens to report to the in-school suspension program supervised by Jones on March 27, 2007, for a rules infraction that occurred four days earlier.
It was on March 27 of last year, authorities allege, that Jones, 46, a former assistant football coach and one-time standout football player at BCHS, forced the girl to perform oral sex on him.
However, Jones’ attorney, Michael Curtis, introduced school records indicating the girl actually served her sentence in the disciplinary program, known as Choosing Alternative Behavior, or CAB, on March 26, and was in her regular classes on the date of the alleged offense.
Curtis also produced a printout of an e-mail purportedly sent by his client stating that the girl had reported to CAB on the 26th.
And, Curtis noted that the disciplinary referral slip did not state that the girl was in CAB on March 27; only that she had been instructed to report on that date.
All of the documents were introduced by the attorneys during the testimony of Boyd County Safe Schools Coordinator Richard Cyrus, who said he had no idea why the discrepancies existed.
However, Cyrus also pointed out that the computer records introduced by Curtis showed that the girl was in school three days after the alleged incident, when, in fact, she was not.
“Sometimes, there are errors,” Cyrus said.
According to earlier testimony, the girl told her father about the alleged incident on March 29. Her parents reported it to the Boyd County Sheriff’s Department, and the girl, now 18, was withdrawn from school and placed in the homebound program.
Jones, who was relieved of his duties by the school district following the alleged incident, is charged with one count of first-degree sodomy. He could be sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison if he is convicted.
In his opening statement on Monday, Conn told jurors that in addition to forcing the alleged victim to perform oral sex on him, he engaged in oral copulation with another female BCHS student on three separate occasions, including earlier on the day of the incident that led to the criminal charge.
Jones was never charged in the other incidents because the girl told authorities that she consented to the sex acts, Conn said.
Curtis has maintained that both girls concocted the allegations against his client. The two had a vendetta against Jones, he said, because of the manner in which he meted out punishment in the CAB program.
Also on Tuesday, a forensic biologist with the Kentucky State Police Central Lab in Frankfort testified that tests performed on carpet cuttings from the CAB trailer, the pants worn by the alleged victim the day of the incident and other items gathered as evidence showed no traces of semen.
However, Steve Barrett said that biological material was found in several places on the covering of the seat of Jones’ desk chair. DNA testing revealed that the substance came from Jones, he said.
Preliminary tests indicated that the substance was saliva, Barrett said. However, under direct examination by Conn, he said that he couldn’t rule out the possibility that it was another type of bodily fluid.
“Could it be possible that it got there from (Jones) sitting in that chair with no clothes on?” Conn asked. Barrett replied that that was, indeed, a possibility.
Jurors also on Tuesday heard a taped interview with Jones conducted three days after the incident by Sgt. Rod Williamson and Deputy Ron Mullins of the sheriff’s department. In the interview, Jones vehemently denied ever engaging in any improper behavior with either of the students in question.
“If any bodily fluids got on one of (the girls’) clothing, how would you explain that it got there?” one of the officers asked.
“There’s no fluids on their clothes. Not from me,” Jones replied.
During his cross-examination of Williamson, Curtis asked why three minutes of the interview were missing from the tape. Williamson said he didn’t know.
“At least it’s not Rosemary Woods’ missing 18 minutes,” Curtis quipped, referring to the infamous gap in the Watergate tapes.
The start of court was delayed by several hours Tuesday while attorneys haggled over evidentiary issues in Judge Marc I. Rosen’s chambers. Rosen told jurors at the close of the day’s proceedings that there had not been nearly as much progress in the case as he had hoped, meaning that the trial, which was originally projected to wrap on Friday, is likely to stretch into next week.
The trial has an off day today and is scheduled to resume at 8:30 a.m. Thursday.
KENNETH HART can be reached at khart@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2654.
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