TEXAS
Corpus Christi Caller-Times
Krista M Torralva , Corpus Christi Caller-Times
A Bee County jury couldn’t decide whether a priest and philanthropist raped a teenage girl at her grandparents’ Beeville-area home.
State District Judge Starr Bauer declared a mistrial Friday in the aggravated sexual assault trial against Stephen Tarlton Dougherty.
Jurors heard testimony over four days and deliberated about six hours. Dougherty and his accuser, who was 13 when she said he raped her, took the stand. The judge released jurors about 10 p.m. Friday after they said they were deadlocked.
Bee County Assistant District Attorney Terry Breen said he plans to re-try the case. A second trial is slated for June.
The accuser, now 18, told a counselor years later Dougherty raped her in December 2011. The counselor persuaded the woman to tell police and in June 2016 Dougherty was indicted of a first-degree felony, punishable by as much as life in prison.
Doughtery, 60, denied the rape accusation. He and his lawyer, John Pinckney of San Antonio, suggested the woman’s grandparents pushed the accusation after a business deal went bad.
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