Defense destroys prosecution’s evidence in controversial sex abuse case.
One year after allegations of sex abuse of his wife spurred an international news frenzy, 78-year-old Henry Rayhons has been acquitted.
Sex abuse charges encompass a wide variety of acts, but the uniting factor is always that the act was committed against another’s will for the purpose of sexual gratification or arousal. Because Rayhons’ wife, Donna, had Alzheimer’s, prosecutors believed that sexual contact would automatically be against her will because she lacked the ability to consent.
In the course of the case, prosecutors alleged that Rayhons was guilty of felony sex abuse charges because he had some kind of sexual contact with his wife after nursing home staff advised him not to.
The defense was able to raise some very significant doubts in the minds of the jurors that ultimately lead to the acquittal.
First of all, the defense attacked the evidence that an inappropriate sex act occurred at all. The prosecution did not produce any eyewitnesses to the alleged incident. Their only witness was Donna Rayhons’ roommate, who testified that she heard something going on behind the curtain separating the two nursing home residents’ beds. Though the roommate had complained to nursing home staff about the sounds, she never said they were sexual. And in court she again declined to characterize the sounds as sexual.
The defense was able to show that no sexual intercourse had occurred using the results of a physical exam complete with lab tests that had been run on Donna Rayhons the night of the alleged incident.
Of course, intercourse is not the only kind of sexual contact that could form the basis for a sex abuse charge. However, the defense presented evidence showing that the limit on “sexual activity” recommended by the nursing home could reasonably have been understood by Henry Rayhons as referring to intercourse. The limit was mentioned briefly at the bottom of a 15-page document presented during a nursing home meeting regarding Donna Rayhons’ care and discussed for about 1 minute out of that 30-minute meeting. No definition for “sexual activity” was given.
According to Henry Rayhons, the only sexual contact he and his wife had following her move to the nursing home was a few incidents when she fondled him through his pants. He testified that she initiated the contact on her own, with no prompting from him, and because she had initiated the contact he assumed that signified consent.
The strongest evidence presented by the prosecution was a secretly taped two-hour interview during which a police investigator seemed to get Henry Rayhons to admit he’d tried to have sex with his wife. However, the defense was able to show that Rayhons seemed to become confused during the interview and had actually been badgered into agreeing to a false statement.
The judge in the case was firm that this case should not be taken as a precedent for all cases involving an Alzheimer’s patient, but instead reflected the unique circumstances in the case of this specific couple.
