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Ohio County Jury Still Deliberating in Sexual Assault Case

Photo by Kylie Weisenborn Richard William Zimmerman, center, and his attorney, Keith Hart, confer with Ohio County Assistant Prosecutor Shawn Turak during Zimmerman’s trial Thursday.

WHEELING — Richard William Zimmerman, charged with first degree sexual abuse and second degree sexual assault, is still waiting on a verdict from a jury in Ohio County.

Just before 9 p.m. Thursday, the jury requested a break for the night, after nearly five and a half hours of deliberations.

Zimmerman, 37, is accused of waking a teenage girl who was having a sleepover with his daughter and sexually assaulting her in February 2015.

“The details in this case are disturbing — it was a slumber party sexual assault,” Assistant Prosecutor Shawn Turak said in court.

The second half of the two-day trial began with testimonies from two teenage females who Zimmerman allegedly contacted via text messages and social media.

While both females were at the age of consent in West Virginia at the time, which is 16, the prosecution argued that they demonstrated Zimmerman’s inclinations toward teenage girls as well as his lustful intentions with messages described as “inappropriate” and “gross” by the witnesses.

One message portrayed Zimmerman saying he wanted to see one teenager on his couch without pants on and another showed him allegedly describing his sexual attraction to the second teen girl. Several adults related to the teens, as well as Zimmerman’s previous girlfriend, also testified regarding the messages.

Testimony given by West Virginia State Police Sgt. Scott Adams discussed the technology investigated for the case at length. While Adams did not recover the text messages Zimmerman allegedly sent the victim, he said he did find seven photos of the victim downloaded from Instagram and saved on Zimmerman’s phone.

After the prosecution rested its case, Zimmerman opted to not take the stand.

During closing arguments, two large topics of discussion were reasonable doubt and consent. While the defense maintained that the victim had consented to the act, Turak said in get closing argument, “She didn’t consent to a darn thing.”

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