Former Philadelphia Police officer found not guilty of sexual assault of teenager
“She’s a liar,” former Officer Charles Young's attorney said of the woman. She had alleged Young assaulted her for years, starting when she was 14 years old.
A former Philadelphia Police officer on Friday was found not guilty of sexually abusing a teenage girl hundreds of times after the jury cast aside the testimony of the complainant.
Charles Young, 52, a member of the force for 21 years, was charged in February 2021 with involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, aggravated indecent assault, and related offenses. He retired shortly before he was arrested.
Young displayed little emotion as the jury read the verdict. The complainant, now 33, said from the back of the courtroom: “He did all this stuff to me since I was a child.”
The woman testified this week during a three-day trial that the abuse occurred between 2004 and 2008, starting when she was about 14. She said Young took advantage of her troubled home life and occasionally gave her money for food or to get her hair braided.
“He told me when I was 18 we were going to get married,” she testified. “I trusted him. I thought he really cared about me.”
She said Young had given her his phone number and told her to call him, then persuaded her to let him have intercourse with her in his car and in the back of a police van parked under a bridge. She said that continued until she was 18.
“He said it was between us and not to tell nobody,” the woman said, at times wiping tears from her eyes.
» READ MORE: ‘It happened’: Woman testifies that former Philly police officer assaulted her as a teenager
She testified that Young had threatened her life years ago and that she remains scared of him, but that she was prompted to come forward in 2020 after learning that a relative of hers had been sexually abused by someone else.
(The Inquirer does not identify victims of alleged sex crimes without their permission).
The case hinged almost entirely on the woman’s testimony. Some details checked out: She knew the number of Young’s police van and that he drove a gold Cadillac while off duty. But defense attorney Shaka Johnson was able to poke holes in other aspects of her testimony.
For instance, the woman testified that Young repeatedly assaulted her under a bridge at Front and Spring Garden Streets. But when Johnson asked Internal Affairs Lt. Cynthia Frye about the bridge, she responded: “There is no bridge.”
The woman had told investigators that she thought Young had a tattoo on his chest or leg. Three times during the trial, Young started to take his shirt off to show the jury that he had no tattoos.
“Nah, I’m not going to allow that,” Judge Tracy Brandeis-Roman said when Young started to undress during Johnson’s closing argument. When Young went to open his shirt, Assistant District Attorney Brett Zakeosian loudly objected, shouting, “Your honor!”
Johnson argued that the case was built on a “foundation of lies” and that the woman could be mentally ill.
Zakeosian, however, said it was not unusual that there would be no witnesses to the alleged assaults.
“No one else was there because he ensured that no one else was there when these things happened,” he said, adding that Young “shielded himself in the blue linen of the Philadelphia Police Department.”
Johnson raised questions about the thoroughness of the Internal Affairs investigation, noting that police never subpoenaed old phone records that might have shown whether Young and the complainant were calling and texting one another, as she claimed.
Nor did they seek bank records. The woman had said Young would withdraw cash from a PNC at Sixth and Spring Garden and give her $50 or $60 on occasion.
“She’s a liar,” Johnson said of the woman.
Young declined to comment Friday as he left the Criminal Justice Center.
One juror told The Inquirer after the conclusion of the trial that he was frustrated by the brevity of the investigation into such serious charges.
“They just didn’t give us enough information,” said Steven Levy, 37, a lawyer. “It’s really unfortunate to the alleged victim that they didn’t take her case as seriously as it should have been taken to decide whether or not it actually happened.”