A Nacogdoches jury has acquitted a former Stephen F. Austin State University football player who was accused of raping a fellow female student during last year's homecoming weekend.

The verdict was returned Tuesday in the 420th District Court following the two-day trial.

According to court documents, in December of 2008, the male freshman defendant was indicted by a Nacogdoches grand jury on two counts of sexual assault, to which he plead not guilty. He was accused of threatening to use force and violence against a female student if she did not have intercourse with him sometime around Sunday, Oct. 26, 2008, the documents said.

According to the defendant's attorney, Letitia Quinones of Houston, it took the jury around 25 minutes to find the defendant not guilty on both counts.

Quinones told The Daily Sentinel that the accuser's boyfriend rented her a hotel room where she brought the defendant the night of the alleged assault. According to Quinones' version of events, following the students' sexual encounter, which she said involved alcohol, the female then accused the defendant of sexual assault "to deflect the embarrassment over what they had done over the course of the evening."

"I think what it came down to was, that basically the young lady was, for lack of a better word, embarrassed about some of the things she had engaged in that weekend, and in order to relieve herself of any embarrassment, she charged this young man with sexual assault," Quinones said. She attributed the jury's brief deliberation to the accuser's constantly changing account of what took place during the alleged rape.

"I was disappointed that the state even brought the case to trial, and I think that the verdict being returned in less than 30 minutes proves that the inconsistencies that existed in her story should have caused the state to take a second look at the case before they actually tried it," Quinones said. "She told the hospital one thing, the police something else and the jury something else. We were able to pinpoint the inconsistencies in front of the jury, and they were able to see through it. And eventually they exonerated the young man. Hopefully, he will be able to go on with his life."

While Quinones was pleased with the trial's outcome, she said the damage had already been done to her client's reputation, who has since left the university over the allegations while his accuser is still attending SFA.

"But (the verdict) doesn't change the fact that he was asked to leave the football team, had to change schools because of the embarrassment, and had to redirect his whole life based on unfounded allegations by a young lady," she said. "Young kids really need to be careful, because this was a lesson for him, too. They have to learn about alcohol and sex, and they really need to be careful of what they're doing, because things like this can happen, and they do happen."

Nacogdoches County Assistant District Attorney Lee Westmoreland, who handled the case for the state, had a different take on what led the jury to find the defendant not guilty.

"Obviously, the verdict returned (Tuesday) was not what I was hoping for. This was not an easy case, as the evidence that was considered by the jury essentially boiled down to a 'contest of credibility,'" he said in a press statement issued Wednesday afternoon. "The reality of these types of prosecutions is that it is very rarely like what you see dramatized on television. Often there are no computer recreations or scientific tests conclusively linking the defendant to the crime, and the entire case rests solely on the testimony of the victim."

Westmoreland said while he respects the jury's decision, he remains adamant that the accuser's allegations were true.

"According to Justice Department statistics, approximately 60 percent of sexual assault victims never report the crime to law enforcement. It is our responsibility to speak for the victims in this county, and I continue to have full faith in the victim's account of what happened that night. That the jury felt that the prosecution had not proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt is certainly disappointing, but does not alter my opinion of the case," the statement said.

The Daily Sentinel withheld publishing names of the accuser and the defendant out of fairness to both with respect to the strong nature of the allegations made in this case and the resulting not guilty verdict.