Jury finds man guilty of indecency with child

NEW BOSTON, Texas-A Texarkana, Texas, man who sexually abused a relative's daughter was convicted by a Bowie County jury Wednesday of three counts of indecency with a child by contact.

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The Associated Press/ESPN

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Donald Ray Coleman, 34, is scheduled to appear in court this morning for the punishment phase of trial. He faces two to 20 years on each of the three indecency convictions.

Coleman was found guilty of abusing the girl twice in 2014 and once in 2016 by a jury of eight women and four men. The victim testified she was 12 when Coleman locked her in a bedroom of her mother's house in Texarkana, Texas, in 2014. The girl told the jury Coleman chased her around the room, pinned her down on a mattress with his body and a forearm, and groped her body with his free hand.

The girl's mother was living with Coleman when the assaults occurred, witnesses testified. The girl, who lives most of the year with her father, said she came to Texarkana to visit her paternal grandmother and her mother last summer at the age of 14. The girl said that Coleman stuck his hand down her shirt as she sat at the kitchen table at a laptop computer.

"He said he'd be back Monday or Tuesday to 'give you what you want,'" the victim testified.

The girl's older sister, now 20, testified that her sister came to the bedroom in her mother's home the night of June 17, 2016, and asked for a piece of paper. The older sister said she told her younger sister that they needed to tell their mother after reading what the teen victim had written describing what Coleman did to her.

That night, Coleman packed a bag and left the house. In a videotaped interview with Texarkana, Texas, Detective Tabitha Colley, Coleman claims he left the home because of noise.

The victim's older sister, now 20, became ill on the witness stand Wednesday when asked to discuss the contents of the handwritten note she read after her sister was fondled by Coleman in June. The older sister is expected to testify today about abuse she suffered at Coleman's hands years earlier. That testimony was not allowed during the guilt/innocence phase of trial but is admissible during the punishment phase.

Assistant District Attorneys Lauren Richards and Kelley Crisp argued that Coleman's victim should not be disbelieved simply because Coleman wasn't charged with the 2014 offenses before he had a chance to touch the girl again in 2016.

"If you believe (the victim), if you believe she's telling the truth, then he's guilty," Richards argued. "We don't have physical evidence like DNA or an eyewitness in cases like this."

Public Defender Chad Crowl argued that the case is absent physical evidence but not reasonable doubt.

Crisp argued that a lack of physical evidence shouldn't lead to a not-guilty verdict.

"No physical evidence. They're hanging their hat on that. Not one person came in here and testified that girl has a motive to lie or that she has a history of not telling the truth.

"No physical evidence. They're hanging their hat on that," Crisp argued. "He assaulted that girl in 2014, and he thought he got away with it so he did it again. Donald Coleman is assaulting girls faster than we can prosecute him. Today is judgment day for Donald Coleman."

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