Judge throws out statutory rape case
Attorneys put girl’s credibility into question
By T.A. BADGER
Associated Press

SAN ANTONIO — Boxer Tony Ayala Jr. was freed Tuesday after state prosecutors dropped their effort to send him back to prison, saying defense lawyers had severely damaged the credibility of a teenage girl who accused him of having sex with her.

The Bexar County District Attorney’s Office withdrew its motion to revoke Ayala’s 10-year probation for a September 2001 burglary conviction.
Ayala, a 39-year-old middleweight, had been in custody since early December after he was accused of twice having sex with the 14-year-old girl in November. He had denied the statutory rape allegation.

“You know the saying, ‘The truth will set you free,”’ said an elated Tony Ayala Sr. after state District Judge Maria Teresa Herr ordered his son freed from jail.

Ayala Jr. left the courtroom through a side door after hugging his attorneys and waving to his supporters. He did not immediately speak to reporters.

“When you’re facing these kinds of ramifications — 10 years in prison, with so little of your boxing career left and maybe you’ll be able to fight for a title — obviously it’s a great relief for Tony Ayala,” said Jimmy Parks, his lead attorney.

The 14-year-old girl spent most of Monday on the witness stand, calmly testifying that she aggressively pursued Ayala sexually after meeting him at his training gym, and that she eventually was able to seduce him.
She said that the pair had sex once in the backseat of the boxer’s car in early November and again in his parents’ house in San Antonio during Thanksgiving week.

But under intense cross-examination, the eighth-grader from suburban San Antonio conceded that she had told several different versions of her story about sex with Ayala to police, her friends and other people.

The girl also acknowledged that she had falsely accused her stepfather of sexually molesting her for four years. She told Parks that she made up that story because she was mad at her stepfather.

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