A Ramsey County jury returned a not-guilty verdict Wednesday night in a case involving a man accused of molesting a 4-year-old girl in his wife’s day care.
Kou Moua Vang, 52, of St. Paul had been charged with first-degree criminal sexual conduct after the girl told her mother that he had touched her sexually.
According to the criminal complaint, the girl reported that the man rubbed himself against her “butterfly,” which was the word she used to refer to her private parts. She said it occurred more than once in the defendant’s home in the 1000 block of East Ross Avenue in St. Paul.
It also occurred at an unoccupied house next door, where the man would show pornographic videos to her, the girl said.
The incidents were alleged to have occurred when the girl attended day care with Kou Vang’s wife between June 2009 and October 2010. She made the allegations to her mother in January.
Kou Vang did not deny possessing pornographic videos, but he said the girl would sneak into his bedroom and pick out one particular one to watch.
“I scolded her, and I placed them in a secure place,” locking the door to the room, he said, according to the prosecutor’s closing argument.
Prosecutor Yasmin Mullings told the jury Wednesday afternoon that it was ludicrous to think a 4-year-old could “outfox” a grown man who intended to keep her away from the video.
But defense attorney Carolina Lamas said there was no physical evidence on the girl’s body that she had been molested. When she testified, she said she never saw Kou Vang without clothes and that he never did anything with his body, Lamas said.
“There was nothing to show there was ever any genital-to-genital contact,” she said, though the girl described such contact to her mother and to a nurse at the Midwest Children’s Resource Center.
“The state hasn’t proven that Kou Vang was involved in anything other than owning legal videos,” Lamas said.
The girl also was unable to point out the defendant in the courtroom.
Emily Gurnon can be reached at 651-228-5522.
