Jury Deliberating Sexual Assault Case against Ord Priest

By Steve White
NTV News
January 8, 2020

https://nebraska.tv/news/local/jury-deliberating-sexual-assault-case-against-ord-priest

ORD, Neb. — A Catholic priest may learn Thursday if he’s going to prison, as a jury decides if he’s guilty of first degree sexual assault of a woman who insists she was trying to document his missionary work.

Rev. John Kakkuzhiyil’s case went to the jury at 2:30 Wednesday afternoon, after attorneys made their final arguments.

”This is not okay. This is not okay. This is not okay,” prosecutor George Welch recounted the woman’s words, as she said she found the priest on top of her.

A freelance writer who went to a priest’s home on Thanksgiving night 2018 to do an interview says she awoke in his bed to find him sexually assaulting her.

As prosecutors conclude their case against Kakkuzhiyil, they tell jurors the blame lies with him.

“Hold him accountable for his actions,” Welch told the panel.

Defense attorney Mark Porto says the woman was inconsistent, saying she had a head injury that wasn’t found in an exam.

Porto said she also exchanged flirtatious texts with the priest, saying she’d see him soon with a wink before going to his place for dinner and drinks.

“She is a grown woman. She makes decisions for herself. And she chose to drink. Father John didn't make her do anything she didn't want to do,” Porto said.

The defense calls it a bad situation, but not criminal.

Porto said they are “good people by and large who made a drunken mistake, the same drunken mistake people make every year, all the time, every day.”

A nurse testified the victim told her she was unconscious, unable to turn down the priest’s advances. The prosecution insists she was meeting with the priest to do business, not for a relationship.

Welch said, “We are not here because the defendant is a catholic priest who had a consensual sexual experience with a woman. That is none of the state's business. That's not a crime. We're here because the defendant performed oral sex on (name redacted) against her will, and that is sexual assault”

Before closing, a DNA expert testified he found one man’s DNA inside the crotch area of the woman’s jeans, and testing points to Kakkuzhiyil.

The prosecution says it all adds up to an act against her will, from a man who could have stopped and did not.

The jury deliberated until just after 5 p.m. on Wednesday night, before recessing for the evening. Deliberations are set to resume Thursday morning at the Valley County Courthouse.