Commonwealth v. K.M.

K.M., a juvenile, and his brother and two other boys were arrested for Sexual Assault, Aggravated Assault and related charges after a female youth claimed that they had shot her with a BB gun and forced her to perform oral sex on all of them. After securing K.M.’s release from juvenile custody to his parent’s home with GPS monitoring, the aggressive defense of the juvenile began. It was soon discovered that the accuser had gained a reputation in her neighborhood for being sexually active and that she had levied these charges to exact revenge for rumor-spreading in the neighborhood and at school. Furthermore, the accuser had only decided to disclose the “incident” after she was about to be punished by her mother for a shoplifting incident. At trial, the defense in this sexual assault case focused on the many inconsistencies in the accuser’s statements to police, video recorded statements to child advocates and her trial testimony and secured a not guilty verdict from the judge on the major felonies. Although K.M. was found guilty of a misdemeanor relating to the BB gun, adjudication on that charge was deferred, meaning that K.M. will be given a chance to keep that charge off of his juvenile record as well. A finding of guilt on the sex charges would have resulted in Meghan’s Law registration for K.M. well into adulthood.