MAN INNOCENT IN SEXUAL-ASSAULT CASE

Girl, 7,got the wrong guy when identifying attacker at LR eatery, lawyer says By John Lynch Arkansas Democrat Gazette, June 15, 2012

LITTLE ROCK A Pulaski County jury on Thursday rejected sexual-assault charges against a waiter accused of molesting a little girl at a west Little Rock restaurant. The 10 women and two men deliberated 90 minutes to acquit Marco Antonio De La Rosa, 37, after a three day trial. The verdict is the second time a jury has found the girls testimony insufficient for a conviction. De La Rosas first trial, in January, ended with a hung jury after six hours of deliberation. The 9-year-old girl and her mother left the courthouse in tears. De La Rosa, who has been jailed since his arrest the February 2011 night the girl was assaulted, will remain in custody until questions about his immigration status can be resolved. He had faced up to 20 years in prison. There was no dispute that the girl, 7 at the time, had been molested in the restroom of the Casa Manana restaurant on Arkansas 10. De La Rosas attorney, Reggie Koch, summed up his defense in five words. Theyve got the wrong guy, Koch told the jury in his closing statement. Due to the pressure she was under and due to her being a little white girl from Northwest Arkansas making a crosscultural identification, she picked the wrong man. The girl and her family were at the restaurant with friends on their way to a sports event. She was groped by a man who lured her into the mens restroom when she made an unescorted trip to the facilities. When the group learned shed been molested, some members, including the girl and her mother, searched the restaurant, seizing upon De La Rosa when they found him inside the locked mens room, the last place they looked. There was no clear testimony about how long that search took, but Koch said De La Rosa could not have neglected his customers for any significant time on a busy night without anyone noticing. For Mr. De La Rosa to be in the restroom for 15 minutes is impossible, Koch said. Are we going to believe that Marco De La Rosa on that busy day was in that restroom all of that time? It doesnt make sense.
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Five patrons who were at the restaurant that night testified for the defense that De La Rosas service never lagged. One waitress said he had been in the kitchen with her picking up food about the same time the girl was attacked. Koch said the girls word is the only evidence prosecutors have. Is it enough ... to put him in that cage with very bad people? Koch said. Deputy prosecutor Jeanna Sherrill told jurors to consider more than just the girls testimony that De La Rosa was her assailant. Sherrill said the girls account of how her family came to Little Rock, how they decided to eat at Casa Manana and what she ordered to drink were as important in evaluating her testimony as her description of what her assailant was wearing, what his facial hair looked like and how he put his hand inside her underwear. The girl was able to remember so many little details so vividly, Sherrill said, how could trivial parts of her testimony be true but the most important part be false? She was a 7-year-old with a 7-year-olds words. Did you really listen to what [she] told? Sherill said in final arguments. The question becomes, do you believe her. Why isnt she credible when she can tell you today she is 100 percent sure this is the man who did this to her. The most crucial detail that proves the girl right is what she did not know, Sherrill said. And that was that her description of her assailant matched only one man in the restaurant that night, the prosecutor said. De La Rosa did not testify. If he had taken the stand, he would have opened himself up to questioning by prosecutors about potentially incriminating remarks he made to arresting officers that night. Prosecutors had been barred from using the information at trial since police had not read him his rights. De La Rosa has always denied harming the child.