Daryl Hunt, on trial on three counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor for allegedly having sex with a 15-year-old girl, confers with his attorney, Bradley Koffel. Jurors are expected to get the case on Thursday.
J Swygart | The Lima News
LIMA — The threat of a mistrial delayed the start of the second day of a jury trial Wednesday for a Lima man charged with having sex with a minor.
Daryl Hunt, 23, is on trial charged with three counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, felonies of the fourth degree. Prosecutors say Hunt had consensual intercourse with a girl who was 15 years of age when the incidents took place in December of 2020.
During testimony on Tuesday, the alleged victim, now 17, set the stage for the mistrial motion when she referenced without provocation an allegation of oral sex between herself and Hunt. The three counts of the indictment allege that Hunt and the girl had only vaginal sex.
The revelation prompted defense attorneys Bradley Koffel and Eric Willison to prepare the mistrial motion overnight. The attorneys, along with assistant Allen County Prosecuting Attorney Josh Carp and Allen County Common Pleas Court Judge Jeffrey Reed, discussed the matter at length in open court Wednesday morning.
Koffel said the 11th-hour disclosure of the act of oral sex between the victim and defendant “criminally altered this case” and affected how the defense team prepared for trial.
When Carp, citing existing case law, claimed the matter could be resolved through an instruction to jurors to disregard testimony of the alleged sex act, Koffel said the state showed a “bizarre and misplaced understanding of what we’re dealing with here. This was a felony act, known by the state (as of last Thursday) yet undisclosed to the defense. It’s impossible to now tell a jury to disregard what this lady is saying.”
Reed, after hearing the attorneys’ arguments, ruled that the state was not guilty of a violation of discovery rules of evidence and that a mistrial was not a necessary action to resolve the dispute. The judge subsequently instructed jurors to disregard any testimony about an act of oral sex.
During cross-examination from Willson, the alleged victim admitted Wednesday morning that her testimony the previous day was contradictory in several instances to statements she made to Lima Police Department Detective Steve Stechschulte during his investigation of the incidents. She blamed the inconsistencies on her young age at the time but also said some of her statements were intentionally misleading in an attempt to protect Hunt “because I felt like I loved the guy.”
She said she and Hunt engaged in consensual sex three times: once behind her house, once at Bresler Reservoir and once at Faurot Park in Lima.
The girl said Hunt initially lied about his age, claiming he was 15 when the pair first met on the SnapChat social media site. He later told her he was 18 but was actually 21 years of age when he had sex with the alleged victim.
Stechschulte, the state’s final witness, testified during the afternoon session Wednesday that the girl was “fairly deceptive” during his interview with her. The detective said such deception is “not uncommon in my experience” in cases of a sexual nature.
Also played for jurors during Stechschulte’s time on the stand was a jail call made by Hunt to a female acquaintance during which he told her “there were things of a sexual nature that took place and things that happened” as the reason he was in police custody.
The trial will resume at 9:30 a.m. Thursday.
