SAN DIEGO (NEWS 8) — After nearly four days of deliberations, jurors reached a verdict Wednesday in the trial of a former Yuma police officer accused of raping a San Diego woman.
Jared Elkins, who is 34-years-old, was found guilty on four counts - including forcible rape and not guilty on four other counts.
Elkins admitted to having sex with his wife's cousin at a Kensington home last year but said the encounter was consensual. The 23-year-old victim testified that Elkins threatened to kill her if she told anyone.
Elkins faces 14 years in prison when he is sentenced March 8, said Deputy District Attorney Lisa Fox.
"Obviously, the fact that he was a law enforcement officer and carried a weapon was significant for the victim in this case, because she believed that he would carry through with his threats and [was] why she was so afraid of him," Fox said outside court. "And I think the jury found that the evidence did clearly support that she was afraid of him."
The jury handed down the following verdicts for Jared Elkins:
- Count 1 – guilty of forcible rape
- Count 2 – not guilty of the crime of an intoxicated person
- Count 3 – guilty of crime of oral copulation
- Count 4 – not guilty of oral copulation of an intoxicated person
- Count 5 – not guilty of oral copulation of intoxicated person
- Count 6 – guilty of oral copulation by force
- Count 7 – guilty of sexual penetration by force
- Count 8 – not guilty of the crime of sexual penetration of an intoxicated person
A jury heard closing arguments Thursday, December 13. The attorney for the victim argued that the former Yuma police officer Elkins forced himself on his then wife's cousin last year after they all went out to a family dinner.
Fox told jurors that the victim had known Elkins for years.
"She trusted him," the prosecutor said in her closing argument. "She's in her own home."
After dinner and a night of drinking with other family members, Elkins and the victim were sitting on a couch watching a movie when she decided to go to bed about 1:30 a.m. on Sept. 15, 2017, Fox told the jury.
Elkins went into the woman's room, forced sex acts on her, then raped her, threatening to kill her if she screamed, the prosecutor said. Fox said the victim waited until she thought Elkins was asleep in another room, then woke up her mother and the two jumped out a window and ran off, with the mother calling 911.
Elkins said he was awakened the next morning by a call from the San Diego Police Department, telling him to come outside, where he was arrested.
He later resigned from the Yuma Police Department.
A 51-year-old Yuma woman testified that Elkins tried to force anal sex on her after a night out in March of this year in their hometown.
The woman said she called the San Diego County District Attorney's Office after seeing the San Diego case on television. Elkins does not face charges in that case.
Elkins testified that the sex he had with the woman in Kensington was consensual and that he didn't force her to do anything or threaten to kill her.
He testified that she came on to him by cuddling on the sofa during the movie.
Defense attorney Ellis "Trip" Johnston told the jury that the case was driven by fear of the victim knowing that she had just slept with the husband of a relative.
Johnston said the victim may have known the defendant better than she had let on and may have had more to drink than she told authorities.
"It didn't add up," Johnston told the jury. "She lied about the amount of alcohol she had."
Johnston said the victim was taking prescription drugs for anxiety and depression and the alcohol she drank may have caused her to have feelings of regret and being found out that she had sex with Elkins.
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