April 17, 2019
By Paragon News Director Paul Joseph –
A Beckham County Jury has found an Elk City man not guilty of rape and lewd acts against a juvenile.
The verdict of not guilty was returned at 7:23 Tuesday evening for 39-year-old Leno V. Gonzales who had been charged with two felony counts of lewd or indecent acts to a child under 16 as well as first degree rape, victim under 14.
Gonzales’ two-day trial kicked off Monday morning in Beckham County District Court with a panel of 12 jurors and one alternate. The jury reached a verdict fairly quickly after the case had been submitted to them at 6:44 pm on Tuesday night, taking less than 40 minutes for the jurors to reach a verdict.
The matter, alleged to have happened in or around late August or early September and ended sometime in October of 2018, was investigated by Elk City police detectives along with an investigator with the Oklahoma Department of Human Services.
Gonzales, who denied all the allegations, had been held in the Beckham County Detention Center on a $500-thousand dollar bond since his arrest last October.
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