Judge dismisses charge, acquits LR man of molesting girl, 12

A 39-year-old Little Rock man accused of molesting a 9-year-old girl was acquitted Tuesday by a Pulaski County circuit judge who threw out the case against him midtrial.

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Judge Barry Sims dismissed the second-degree sexual-assault charge against Leovardo Huerta Jr. after prosecutors rested their case.

Defense attorney Bill James argued that prosecutors hadn't presented sufficient evidence to the nine women and three men of the jury to prove wrongdoing by his client.

Huerta had faced up to 20 years in prison over accusations by the girl, now a 12-year-old seventh grader, and her 29-year-old mother that the man had molested her at his Dahlia Drive home between May 2011 and October 2011. He was arrested in April 2012.

In opening statements, James told jurors that the woman said her daughter had told her that Huerta was molesting her for at least three months before the woman alerted authorities by taking the girl to the hospital.

James asked jurors to consider the time frame in which she went to authorities.

He said the accusations were driven by the woman's interest in protecting her immigration status.

The woman and her daughter had been living at the Huerta home, but the night before she went to authorities with her accusations, he had thrown them out of the house, James said. The lack of a fixed address jeopardized her residency, James said.

The girl's mother testified that she never saw Huerta touch her daughter inappropriately but had caught them together in a bedroom in suspicious circumstances.

Testifying through an interpreter, the Spanish-speaking woman said she opened the bedroom door and found Huerta standing next to the bed where her daughter had been watching TV. The girl scrambled to the far side of the bed when she entered, the mother said.

The room smelled like there had been a sexual encounter, the woman testified, and when she questioned the girl, the child told her that Huerta had been touching her and had touched her several times before.

The woman now has a visa, granted to victims of domestic violence, to remain in the United States, according to testimony. She said she had been assaulted by the girl's father.

The girl said Huerta would fondle her under the pretense of tickling her, usually while she was on the bed watching TV.

Deputy prosecutors Michael Wright and Luke Daniel told jurors in opening statements that Huerta had intimidated mother and daughter to keep them from going to the police.

James and co-counsel Lee Short took over the case after Huerta's first trial in April ended in mistrial because his original attorney, Jim Clouette, was overcome with illness midtrial.

Metro on 10/08/2014

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