Jury finds ex-UH student not guilty of sexual assault
Tyler Strong was acquitted of all counts of sexual assault Friday after a jury trial. Strong was hugged by his mom Dawn Strong, left and Julie Longton.
A Circuit Court jury on Friday found former University of Hawaii student Tyler Strong not guilty of sexually assaulting a fellow student in his dorm room last fall.
The jury of eight women and four men initially began deliberating the case Monday morning after a week-long trial before Circuit Court Judge Randal Lee. But after Lee excused a juror Tuesday afternoon, the court instructed the jury to restart deliberations after an alternate juror was brought in.
Strong, 19, was charged with two counts of first-degree sexual assault, which carries a mandatory 20-year prison term, for an incident that occurred in the early morning hours of Sept. 21 in his UH-Manoa dorm room.
He also was charged with one count of third-degree sexual assault, which carries a maximum five-year prison term.
The state had argued that Strong, who now lives in Eugene, Ore., forced himself on an 18-year-old woman and raped her. The two described their past friendship as flirtatious.
The woman testified through tears that she told Strong to stop six times, but Strong testified that the sex was consensual and that she never told him "no" or to stop at any time.
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The woman said that after a night of drinking with friends, she went over to Strong’s room expecting she might make out with him to get back at another guy she liked — Strong’s next-door neighbor — who she had fought with earlier in the night.
When asked what she thought was going to happen in his room, the woman said, "Kissing and cuddling was probably a possibility for that night. … It was kind of like, like a revenge thing."
Strong said the woman came over to his room around 5 a.m. Sept. 21 after he sent her text messages including, "Baby I wanna give it to you come back," and "Baby hurry."
"I wanted to sleep with her," Strong said of his text messages.
Strong said after they had sex, she "began to cry out of nowhere" and abruptly left.
The woman said once she could free herself, she ran out of Strong’s room and collapsed in the front lawn of the dorm building, where a campus security officer would later find her "crying profusely."
