UPDATED Thursday at 12:15 p.m.
A jury has acquitted a south Fayette man on charges that he molested his daughter between February 2008 and May 2009
Daniel Joel Reid, 37, was found not guilty of child molestation, incest and rape. He has maintained his innocence, and his attorney claimed that the incidents were fabricated, pointing to the language that the victim used during her first forensic interview.
Fayette County District Attorney Scott Ballard noted that there was no physical evidence in the case. But the victim, now 12, testified that the incidents took place on her father’s bed at his home on Eastin Road while she and her brother had visitation with Reid, and that her brother was either watching TV or playing video games in another room when the incidents happened.
Reid’s defense attorney, Ricky Morris Jr., challenged the girl’s account, noting that the victim was asked in that interview if she knew what had happened to her. The victim replied that she had been “child molested,” Morris said, noting that those specific words couldn’t have come from the girl herself, who was 9 years old at the time.
Morris also questioned the motive of one of the prosecution witnesses, the doctor who conducted the forensic interview of the victim and then continued to treat her as a patient for months afterwards. That doctor, Morris said, morphed into an advocate for the child, Morris told the jury in his opening statement.
