The key witness for the state’s sexual assault case against local businessman Benny Shelton took the stand yesterday to testify against his alleged abuser.
The man, who was 17 at the time of the incident, testified Shelton forced him to perform oral sex while on a weekend church retreat at Lake Lowndes. The Dispatch does not reveal the identity of juvenile victims.
The alleged victim was on the stand more than three hours, giving Assistant District Attorney Lindsey Clemons and Defense Attorney Rod Ray a detailed account of the event. The alleged victim, who has cerebral palsy, could not remember some details.
In his testimony, he said the incident occurred on the first night of the retreat in July 2008 when he woke up to Shelton trying to perform the sexual act for which he is charged.
He said he had no further physical contact with Shelton that weekend but that Shelton texted him and said he was sorry. He said Shelton continued to send him text messages apologizing but he deleted them as soon as he got them for fear his mother would find them.
In one of the text messages, Shelton allegedly asked what he could do for the boy to make it up to him. The teen replied that Shelton could take him places.
He stated that over the next several months, Shelton took he and his friends to dinner and gave him rides.
The teenager turned 18 in December 2008, after which he alleges he began receiving explicit text messages from Shelton.
He admitted sending Shelton a text message asking for a ride and promising to do “anything” in return. He says a month later Shelton took him to Walmart and bought a phone card for him, then drove to Shelby Drive, where he fondled him. The alleged victim said he feared for his life.
Immediately after the incident, he told a friend and his mother was notified. Together, they went to the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Department. While there, the teen and Shelton exchanged text messages which investigators photographed.
In the first text message, the boy asked Shelton “Should I turn you in?”
“Please buddy, I am sad,” Shelton replied. “I will help you, I promise.”
“What do I get if you don’t?” the boy texted, and Shelton responded, “Phone?”
He said investigators asked him to text a question to which only Shelton would know the answer. He texted a question about the alleged fondling incident, but Shelton did not respond.
Ray, Shelton’s attorney, asked the teen if he was a “worldly, ‘I’m going to do what it takes to get by’ kind of guy.”
The teen denied the description but, after further questioning from Ray, admitted he and Shelton had oral sex in the car during the fondling incident but alleged it was forced.
Ray showed images from the victim’s Facebook page when he was a teenager, where he identified himself as a Wiccan, an atheist, and a “man whore.” The victim denied knowing what the phrase meant and said it was a name he was called by other youth at Skate Zone.
When questioned by ADA Clemons, Junior Eads, pastor at Eastview Baptist Church, said a friend the victim told following the retreat incident came to him saying Shelton had “done something (to the teen)” and Eads needed to talk to him.
Eads said he spoke with him but was reluctant to believe him.
“I can’t say that I honestly believed what he said,” Eads said. “That’s why I asked if he understood the seriousness of what he was saying. He said he did.”
Eads said when he spoke with Shelton the following afternoon, Shelton cried and denied the accusation and Eads encouraged him to go talk to the boy’s parents.
Two weeks later, he said, Shelton assured him he had “got it worked out.”
Eads did not speak again with the boy or his parents and did not contact law enforcement.
Melanie Benson, who began counseling the teen a month after the alleged attack, then took the stand and testified on her patient’s mental status. She said the boy had visible cuts on his arms and was extremely depressed.
Benson, who specializes in marriage and family counseling and working with abused children, was then questioned by Assistant District Attorney Mark Jackson, who asked her to describe common traits of victims of sexual assault. She listed intense fear and promiscuity as possible signs of abuse and testified the teen told her he had become promiscuous to prove to himself he was not homosexual.
The state then called LCSO Detective Tony Cooper to the stand.
Cooper said he interviewed the teen, Shelton, Eads and other children who were at the retreat.
Cooper stated Shelton denied the July 2008 incident but admitted to having oral sex with him in January 2009, once he was 18. He denied forcing the boy, saying it was consensual.
Ray asked Judge Lee Howard to dismiss both counts of sexual assault, but Howard denied the dismissal and court was recessed until 9 a.m. today.
In other news, the Slab House murder trial continued Wednesday. Chuck Newell is on trial for the murder of Adrian Boyette, whom he is accused of shooting and killing in the Slab House parking lot.
Sheila Ray, who lives across the street from the bar and works there as a bartender, testified she had just gotten off work and gone home when she heard a loud “pop.” She walked back across the street to find the source of the noise and saw Boyette laying on the ground.
Newell’s wife, Diane Newell, returned to the bar shortly afterward and Ray used the woman’s phone to call Chuck Newell.
She testified she asked him if he knew he had just killed a man, and she said he replied, “Well, it’s Diane’s fault,” and hung up.
When police officers arrived at Newell’s home in Vernon, Ala., they discovered him outside with a gun to his head, threatening to kill himself, former Vernon police officer J.C. Smith testified.
He said the standoff between Newell and officers lasted more than an hour, with officers repeatedly telling Newell, “It doesn’t have to go down like this.”
He said Newell told them he would die before he went to jail and claimed Boyette hit the window of his truck, yelling threats.
Agent David Sullivan, with the 24th Judicial Circuit, said he spoke with Newell at great length, trying to convince the man to put the gun down. He testified that Newell repeatedly said did not know Boyette and asked the agent to finger print his truck to prove Boyette had banged on Newell’s window. Sullivan told him he would.
However, to Sullivan’s knowledge, the truck was never finger printed.
State Medical Examiner Steven Hayne is set to take the stand today and Newell is expected to testify as well.
Sarah Fowler covered crime, education and community related events for The Dispatch.
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