Judge denies motion to dismiss sexual assault case against former Bethel football player – Twin Cities

A judge has denied a defense request to dismiss the case against a former Bethel football player accused of sexually assaulting a classmate in 2018. He ruled this week that a prosecutorial error that led to a mistrial in January was “not evidence of bad faith or intentional misconduct.”

Wednesday’s decision by Ramsey County District Judge Joy Bartscher means Gideon Osamwonyi Erhabor, now 26, of McKinney, Texas, will face trial on third-degree sexual abuse charges. A retrial determination hearing is scheduled for June 11.

Erhabor’s attorney, Daniel Gonnerman, did not respond to a request for comment on the judge’s decision on Thursday.

The prosecution’s error came on the first day of testimony and involved an audio recording played in court that referenced two other sexual assault cases involving Erhabor. A judge had denied the prosecution’s request to introduce evidence from the other two cases, which were referred to in court as the Spreigl evidence. Despite the similarities in the three cases, Judge David Brown wrote, there were what he called “significant differences.”

Ramsey County prosecutors filed charges against Erhabor on December 3, 2019, after three then-Bethel women reported to authorities on separate days in June 2019 that Erhabor had assaulted them in the fall and winter of 2018.

A jury found Erhabor not guilty on one count of third-degree sexual abuse in October 2022. The other case, involving an alleged assault in October 2018, is still pending in court on the same charge.

Officials from the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office questioned Erhabor about the incidents in his Texas hometown in September 2019. While he admitted to having sex with the three women, he said all interactions were consensual, the criminal complaint states.

Erhabor was a student at Arden Hills Christian College from fall 2017 to fall 2018. In 2018, he was a running back on the football team.

He was arrested in his hometown in Texas the day after the charges were filed and released from the Ramsey County Jail nearly a month later on $30,000 bail.

‘Another Woman’ mentioned

Before testimony in the second trial, both attorneys agreed to redact portions of the woman’s 2019 interview with a sheriff’s office investigator. The redactions were intended to conform to Brown’s decision regarding Spriegl’s evidence.

The woman testified on Jan. 23 that Erhabor picked her up on Sept. 11, 2018, and made advances to his room in the Black Panther dorm. Eventually, they began kissing while lying on a futon. She said Erhabor pulled off her pants and then grabbed her hips. After he took a condom, “I said no and slid away,” she testified. She said her head was on a pillow during the assault and she cried while doing it.

Later, Ramsey County Assistant Prosecutor Andrew Johnson gave jurors a redacted transcript of the woman’s conversation with the investigator. He then played an audio recording of the conversation in which the investigator said, among other things, that she was “the third woman.”

The unedited recording continued, with the investigator making a reference to “another woman.” Johnson stopped the recording.

Bartscher demanded that the jury be led out of the courtroom.

Johnson apologized for not removing the references to the other women from the audio recording. Gonnerman requested a mistrial and Bartscher agreed, acknowledging there was no other viable option.

“The mistake was unintentional”

A hearing on the defense’s motion to dismiss the charges was held on February 23. Bartscher heard arguments from Johnson and Gonnerman and received written arguments.

Gonnerman made three arguments why the case should be dismissed: further prosecution was barred by the double jeopardy clause, which prohibits someone from being tried twice for the same crime. Erhabor’s right to a speedy trial had been violated. And it was in the interest of justice.

Johnson, meanwhile, insisted it was not deliberate, but that he had inadvertently copied an older audio file onto his laptop “which was missing the necessary deletions.” He said the newer audio file was created at the last minute “to be entirely fair to the defense by correcting erroneous omissions and insertions that both parties had overlooked.”

Bartscher wrote in her opinion filed in court Thursday that Minnesota case law is clear: Retrial of a criminal case after a mistrial is permitted unless the court finds bad faith or willful misconduct or the mistrial was “intentionally designed to induce the defendant to seek a mistrial.”

Johnson played the audio recording because he believed it was an exact copy of the evidence presented, Bartscher concluded. “The prosecutor’s error was unintentional; the prosecutor quickly acknowledged his error and agreed with the defense that a mistrial was the appropriate remedy because no other remedy seemed salutary and appropriate.”

Bartscher acknowledged that Gonnerman had pointed out that the prosecution had gone beyond the first prohibited allegation in the audio recording, thus exposing the jury to further reference.

“The first prohibited accusation, however, lasted only four seconds and went unnoticed and unchallenged, not even by the defense,” Bartscher wrote. “This incident shows neither malice nor willful misconduct.”

Regarding the defense’s argument that a second trial would violate Erhabor’s right to a speedy trial, Bartscher noted that Gonnerman had not made a formal motion for a speedy trial. The judge also pointed out that the defense had agreed to the adjournment, which she said was due to scheduling conflicts with both the court and the attorneys.

On whether the case should be dismissed in the interest of justice, Gonnerman pointed out that Erhabor is black and that the jury was comprised of multiple black individuals, saying it was “unprecedented for Ramsey County.” He said the racial makeup of the jury was a “significant advantage for (Erhabor) that cannot be replicated.”

Although the ethnic composition of the jury was important in all cases, it was “impossible to determine what influence, if any, the composition of the jury would have had on the outcome of the trial,” Bartscher wrote.