KBN Managing Partner Brad Koffel recently secured Not Guilty verdicts on all counts for a client charged with having consensual sex with a 15-year-old girl.
As reported by The Lima News, the verdicts concluded a week-long trial Allen County Common Pleas Court in which Koffel’s client, a 23-year-old former University of Northwestern Ohio student, had been facing three felony counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor. Prosecutors claimed that the young man had sexual intercourse with the girl on three separate occasions in December 2020. The Defendant denied ever having intercourse with the girl, who he said had represented herself as being 18 when they first met on the social medial platform Snapchat.
In closing statements, Koffel told the jury they had no choice but to find the Defendant not guilty given the state’s lack of physical evidence and the alleged victim’s often contradictory testimony. He noted:
“If you think he didn’t do it, that’s a not guilty vote. If you think ‘I don’t know,’ that’s a not guilty vote. If you think ‘maybe he did it,’ it’s a not guilty. If you think he probably, did it or even if it’s highly probable that he did do it, he is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.”
The tipping point occurred on Tuesday after the prosecution presented testimony from the alleged victim about the alleged encounters, including an incident of alleged oral sex, between her and the Defendant. The indictment alleged only that the Defendant and girl had vaginal sex.
The revelation prompted Koffel to request a mistrial on the basis that the 11th-hour disclosure “criminally altered this case,” and to pursue a line a cross-examination in which the alleged victim admitted that portions of her testimony were contradictory to what she previously told investigators and that she made intentionally misleading statements to protect the Defendant “because I felt like I loved the guy.”
Read more about the case here.
Brad Koffel is Managing Partner at KBN and an award-winning criminal defense attorney who has defended clients in courts across Ohio for nearly three decades. Mr. Koffel concentrates much of his practice on felonies and serious crimes, including alleged sex crimes and sexual misconduct allegations under Title IX.