By PAVEL BAILEY
Tribune Staff Reporter
pbailey@tribunemedia.net
THE prosecution recommended on Friday that a man convicted of dry humping his nine-year-old female cousin in their South Beach Drive home in 2014 be sentenced to three to six years in prison, while the defence called for a more lenient 12-month term.
The 28-year-old defendant, whose name is being withheld to protect the identity of the complainant, was found guilty last month of one count of indecent assault and not guilty of another count of indecent assault before Senior Justice Cheryl Grant-Thompson.
The matter marked the conclusion of the country’s first judge-alone trial.
Prosecutor Karine MacVean asked the court to impose a three-to-six-year prison sentence, citing the seriousness of the offence and the trauma experienced by the complainant.
Defence attorney Ryan Eve submitted that his client should face 12 months or less in prison for the offence. He said his client had already spent seven months and 14 days in custody by the time of his sentencing hearing.
The complainant testified that she woke up around 2am on April 27, 2014, to feel the accused dry humping her.
She recalled feeling the accused’s penis being thrust between her thighs. The complainant said she was scared during the ordeal. She said she knew about male genitalia at that age because of primary school family health classes.
She said the defendant hid in the bathroom before returning and allegedly fondling her little sister and rubbing his genitals on her buttocks while the five-year-old girl slept.
The now 21-year-old complainant claimed her underwear and clothes were to the side during the assault, but were not completely off.
The defendant denied the allegations during his testimony and claimed he never left his mother’s bedroom that night. He claimed he would never do this to his young cousins and that his aunt threatened to kill him when the allegations were first made.
The defendant was acquitted of indecently assaulting the five-year-old girl.
He returns for sentencing on June 4.
The champions are dethroned. Wembanyama and the Spurs are headed to the NBA Finals.
Wembanyama scored 22 points, Julian Champagnie got 18 of his 20 off of 3-pointers and the Spurs beat the Oklahoma City Thunder 111-103 on Saturday night — bucking heavy odds to win a Game 7 on the road.
“This feeling, I can't explain it,” Wembanyama said. “It's so powerful.”
Stephon Castle scored 16 points and De’Aaron Fox had 15. Dylan Harper added 12 and Keldon Johnson and Devin Vassell each finished with 11 for the Spurs, who are headed to the NBA Finals for the first time since 2014.
They will host the New York Knicks in Game 1 on Wednesday night.
“Back in October, we knew we had a chance to be pretty good,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said.
Correction — the Spurs have a chance to be great. Championship-level great.
A huge moment came midway through the fourth, when San Antonio’s Luke Kornet blocked Oklahoma City’s Isaiah Hartenstein at the rim — denying a fast-break score that would have gotten the Thunder within four.
It felt like the last gasp for the Thunder. Kornet played six minutes, missed all three of his shot attempts and finished with only two points, but the block was an epic moment.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led the Thunder with 35 points and nine assists, but for the eighth consecutive season the NBA will have a new champion.
Cason Wallace scored 17 points, while Jared McCain and Alex Caruso had 12 apiece for the Thunder.
“You have to grow from every experience, including the tough ones,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said.
“And it's the NBA — there are tough ones. We can also be really disappointed. ... There's nobody that we don't think we can beat, respectfully.”
After four straight games that were largely decided going into the fourth quarter — the Thunder led Game 3 by 11, the Spurs led Game 4 by 18, the Thunder led Game 5 by 10 and the Spurs led Game 6 by 26, those leads all holding up with relative ease — this one was different, worthy of a Game 7.
Spurs 80, Thunder 77 was the score going into the fourth, a bit of a back-and-forth contest where the Spurs led by as many as 14 in the first half and then by as many as 11 in the third, only to see the Thunder come roaring back both times.
“The players did what they've been doing all year and they met the biggest moment,” Johnson said.
The Spurs pulled away in the fourth again, daring the Thunder to try to come back one more time. The champions — short-handed, with Jalen Williams sidelined with a bad hamstring — just didn't have anything left. “Winning an NBA championship is very hard in itself to do one time," Gilgeous-Alexander said. “So to do it all over again would just only make it harder.”
San Antonio won eight of the 12 meetings against the Thunder this season — and in the end, the only matchup that really mattered. “We want four more,” Wembanyama said. “We're not done.”
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