A "he said, she said" sex abuse case that resulted in a hung jury in April will not be retried, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Charged in the case was James "Jamie" Hoban II, 34, of 1213 Wyatt Lane, Belpre, who was accused of molesting twin 12-year-old girls during the summer of 2007.
The girls and Hoban testified during the April trial, but a jury deadlocked in the case. Hoban had faced up to 30 years in prison on the allegations of gross sexual imposition.
Hoban's attorney, Rolf Baumgartel, said he considers the dismissal a victory, but wishes the case had never gone to trial the first time.
"Jamie has always said he was never involved in any kind of inappropriate behavior, and in fact, he took and passed a polygraph," Baumgartel said.
At trial, the girls maintained Hoban touched them inappropriately at his home while they were there visiting their mother, who lived with him. They said the incidents occurred over a period of several weeks.
Washington County Prosecutor Jim Schneider said he decided to dismiss the case after talking with the victims and their father last week. He said the children were reluctant to take the witness stand again.
"It was mutually agreed by me and them that we would not try the case again," Schneider said. "We had our shot and the evidence has not improved. In my view, this was going to be an even harder case to prove the second time around because the defendant would be better prepared for my arguments."
Schneider said he was aware Hoban had passed a lie detector test prior to the trial, but that he still felt the case was best suited for a jury to decide. He said the jury was "split pretty evenly" at the end of the trial, making a decision to dismiss easier.
"If it was 11-1, or 10-2, and I really felt there was just a holdout or two, we would probably go for it," he said. "As for the lie detector test, I wasn't fazed by it. He took it at the suggestion of his attorney, and I'm sure I would have asked different questions or asked them differently."
Still, Schneider said he may have been somewhat more inclined to dismiss the case because of the polygraph.
"It happened to be a lie detector operator I trust and who I trust to give honest reports," he said. "I wonder if it did subtly affect my decision to not retry it, but I can't say for sure."
Schneider said the case could still be refiled if new evidence is collected.
"I'm satisfied two things happened," Schneider said. "Hoban went though a lot. He paid attorney fees and went though a lot of abuse. He, for sure, won't be doing anything with these girls again and maybe it was enough of a wake-up call that he won't do anything like it again. If he in fact didn't do it, he can move on with his life."
