An almost all-female jury pronounced Officer Anthony Maio not guilty Tuesday of sexually assaulting two college students. Now his quest for vindication turns from the court to the police department.
Eight days after his trial began, the jury of five women and one man deliberated for under an hour before clearing Maio (pictured) of two counts of sexual assault in the fourth degree and two counts of unlawful restraint. The state had charged that while working an extra-duty job at BAR on April 19, 2008, Maio took two underaged Quinnipiac University students upstairs to a bathroom, locked them inside, and fondled them.
“The state didn’t prove the case,” one juror said after the verdict. Another added that the evidence presented “was not concrete.”
Maio, a 13-year veteran of the force, remained in the courtroom hugging his family and friends after the verdict was announced in Courtroom 6B of State Superior Court on Church Street.
He deferred comment to his lawyer, Timothy Pothin.
“This is a vindication,” Pothin said. “I was convinced from the beginning of this case that no crime was committed. I’m grateful that the jury saw through the charade that was the state’s case. In the end, it was a fractured fairy tale.”
Pothin vigorously challenged the credibility of the two alleged victims, young women who testified in the trial. Pothin suggested that they were drunk and making up their story. The two women claimed that Maio had taken them into the bathroom, locked the door, and groped them. Maio testified that he had accidentally discovered the two women in the bathroom, and they came onto him.
Maio made a gamble in this case: He turned down a judge’s offer to grant accelerated rehabilitation in return for retiring as a cop.
Now that he’s been cleared, Maio will seek to be reinstated as a cop, Pothin said Tuesday afternoon.
“There’s no reason he shouldn’t get his job back,” Pothin said.
Police Chief James Lewis said it’s too early to tell.
Under the department’s union contract, it couldn’t conduct an internal investigation of the case to see whether Maio violated administrative rules until the criminal case was completed.
Now that internal review will begin.
“They already pulled it out and started looking at it,” Lewis said. “There may be violations of administrative rules that are different from the criminal.”
Lewis also noted that Maio has a request for a disability pension filed with a doctor’s note stating he needs to retire because “he can’t work.” The department still needs to deal with that request, Lewis said. “He can withdraw that if he has a doctor who suddenly says he is better.”
All About “Burden Of Proof”
Responding to Tuesday’s verdict, prosecutor Gene Calistro said that he wishes Maio “good luck.” He added that he took no pleasure from prosecuting the case. As Calistro stated in court, he has worked on cases with Maio.
Calistro (pictured) said he tried to “treat him like everyone else.” When prosecuting this case, he questioned Maio the same as he would “anyone else with those charges.” He complimented defense attorney Pothin’s handling of the case.
While the victims were not in court to hear the verdict, they said they were “disappointed” with the verdict, Calistro reported.
The jurors discussed the verdict afterwards over beers and wine at Anna Liffey’s on Whitney Avenue. (They declined to be named.) They said they didn’t consider relevant the defense’s portrayal of the alleged victims as party girls. Nor did the fact that the women used fake IDs play a role in their decision.
Rather, they focused on the evidence — or lack of it — of a crime being committed. They noted in particular that the second of the two women to testify, who spoke with Maio at BAR about a summer job dressing up as Wonder Woman at an amusement park, did not provide many “specifics” on the stand.
They declined to say whether or not they believed Maio committed the acts of which he was accused. Rather, as one juror emphasized, they considered him “innocent until proven guilty.” They emphasized Judge William Holden’s words that the state had to meet a burden of proof. Prosecutor Calistro did not prove the charges “beyond a reasonable” doubt, they said.
The two alternate jurors said that even though they were not part of the decision process, they would have reached the same not-guilty verdict.
Previous coverage of this case:
• In Last-Minute Surprise, Maio Takes The Stand
• Cop: Student Was Drunk
• Tears Shed Both On And Off The Stand
• Cop’s Alleged Victim Put On Defensive
• Maio Deal On Hold
• Cop Denies Groping Students
• Cop Arrested On Sexual Assault Charges
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